Once A Bother
by Tajjas
Summary: Every brother was once a bother. The angelic kind included. Sam and Dean head out on a hunt with ties to a time neither wants to remember, and Castiel has his own problems. Friendship fic set between 5.08/Changing Channels and 5.09/The Real Ghostbusters.
1. Dean: Bigfoot is a hoax

_This takes place during season 5, probably sometime between 5.08/Changing Channels and 5.09/The Real Ghostbusters. A couple ideas have popped into my head watching the past few episodes and won't go away, so I figured I might as well go ahead and write them down (but, yes, River of Dreams and On My Own are still in progress as well). _

_Both Winchester brothers as well as Castiel will be involved, at the moment I'm just debating who gets point-of-view when. Some bits from my story Children of Man may be referenced offhand, but it shouldn't be necessary to read that first. Although if you want to, feel free._

_And in case anyone was wondering, _Supernatural_ isn't mine._

* * * * *

"It's a beautiful day," Dean announced, swinging the motel room door shut behind him and flinging himself down on the first bed.

Sam gave him dubious look and then glanced out the window, staring pointedly at the clouded gray sky. "Uh…yeah. Sure."

"You're just jealous because she liked me better." The lovely Miss Nina Roberts, journalism student by day, waitress at Lucky's Pizza Parlor by night, with curves that—

"I think she likes having her apartment poltergeist-free," Sam interrupted. "You just took advantage of the situation."

"I would never!" Okay, so he _might_, or at least he'd been known to use that kind of situation to give himself a little glamor, but it wasn't like he hadn't really killed the thing. It was totally legit glamor. He caught Sam's eye roll and dug one of the pillows out from under his head to fling at his no-fun-is-good-fun brother. "Definitely jealous."

Sam rolled his eyes again. "Dean, I'm kind of busy here."

"Yeah, that computer been keeping you…stimulated? All that, you know, processor speed, and megabytes? You know, you ought to be careful. With all the crap you've been catching lately there's probably some vir—" Sam flung the pillow back at him, and he caught it easily. "So did you find another hunt, or what?" They'd sort of stumbled into this one by accident after leaving Bobby's last week, but Sam was always keeping an eye out for other possibilities. Well, he was too, but given that Sam claimed the computer most of the time, he tended to be the one that found that hunts that weren't totally local. He snorted to himself. With the angels—Cas excepted, of course—being their normal dick-ish selves, the best thing the two of them could do was keep moving.

"Maybe." Sam got to his feet, rolling his shoulders and indicating the computer. "Check this out."

Dean put the pillow aside and moved to take the seat that Sam had vacated. "Seriously?" he had to ask, as he caught the article title.

Sam's back popped as he stretched for the ceiling. "What? I am serious."

He didn't _think_ Sam had managed to get his brains rattled keeping that poltergeist distracted while he'd dug up the remains, but maybe he'd missed something. He twisted to look up at his brother. "Sam, Bigfoot is a hoax."

"Huh?" Sam relaxed his arms and stared at him for a moment before leaning down to look over his shoulder. "No, not _that_ one. The next article down."

"Oh." He'd known that. "Let's see…'Five unidentified hikers found.' What, did the dudes forget their names?"

"Keep reading."

He scanned down a few more lines and then winced. "'According to a reputable source in the local morgue, the authorities are attempting to identify the hikers by dental records, as all the flesh appears to have been stripped from their bodies.' _Ouch_. Okay, that's a little weird. You really think there's a hunt there?"

"Maybe. I mean, the article in the regular town newspaper doesn't say much beyond the fact that the bodies were found a few miles outside of town two days ago and that they're attempting to identify them using dental records due to 'extreme skin deterioration.' But according to this," he tapped the screen lightly, "aside from the missing skin—not missing muscle, not missing fat, just skin, and they were dressed when they were found—they were arranged in a specific pattern with symbols painted on the rocks they were lying on and petals from out of season flowers scattered around. That sounds pretty damn ritualistic to me."

Dean checked the title of the page. "Yeah, and tabloids never make shit up. _Bigfoot_ rated higher than this, Sammy."

Sam shook his head. "They were _skinned_, Dean. Even forgetting about what the tabloid had to say, I can't think of too much that could, or would, strip a person of just their skin and leave the rest intact. I mean, an animal sure as hell wouldn't."

"Skin walker?" Dean suggested after a moment. Not that he'd ever heard of one actually _skinning_ a person, but it made sense in a sort of twisted way. And God knew skin walkers weren't exactly among the most rational creatures they'd ever run into.

"That was my first thought," Sam agreed. "I mean, usually they just imitate a person, but maybe this one is a little more messed up than the rest. Or it could be something else—I mean, five people who everyone seems to agree were killed and skinned all at the same time? That's kind of a stretch for one guy."

"Point," Dean had to admit. "And if this site is even partially correct about how they were found…a witch, maybe?" He made a face and reminded himself that he'd probably be dead of unnatural causes _long_ before he was too old to eat bacon cheeseburgers. "Man, I am so sick of witches."

"Could be, I guess. My next guess, after skin walker, was demonic activity. They've got rituals too."

"Huh. Or it could be just your everyday lunatic." He indicated the computer screen. "That idea is coming straight from a 'confidential source within the police department,' according to this." Of course, the police weren't exactly known for their stellar observational abilities, at least not when their cases involved he and Sam's line of work.

"I guess it _could_ be." Sam frowned. "You don't think it's worth checking out?"

Dean shrugged, wondering if this was part of the whole 'let me grow up' thing before deciding that that was just dumb. Sam had been tracking down the majority of their hunts even before he went to hell. Of course, the fact that it was dumb didn't necessarily mean that that _wasn't_ what Sam was thinking, but.... "Well, it's not like I had any other plans for the rest of the week. We might as well spend a few days in—" He scrolled up to check the city listed on the web page. "In middle-of-nowhere North Dakota. Dude, the next time you start looking for a hunt, could you limit your search to, I don't know, Vegas? New York City? Anywhere with a population of more than two thousand?"

Sam snorted. "If anything ever showed up in Vegas, there'd be fifty hunters there the next morning fighting over who got to stay and kill the thing. Anything supernatural that turns up there probably leaves immediately in self-defense."

That might be true, but Dean still found it annoying. "I guess we're off to North Dakota, then. Remind me to pick up a few magazines before we leave civilization."

Sam rolled his eyes. "You want to stay here tonight and leave tomorrow morning?"

With a shake of his head, Dean looked out the motel window. Still the same ugly gray sky that had been hanging over them for the past three or four days. "Might as well head out now; there's still plenty of daylight left. You're driving." He needed to get some sleep.


	2. Cas: Are you on any medications?

_Okay, so Abandon All Hope depressed the hell out of me, so this story is now officially set between 5.08/Changing Channels and 5.09/The Real Ghostbusters. Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed._

* * * * *

The house went up in a plume of flame that lit the entire neighborhood, and he heard the demons scream as it consumed them. They weren't his concern, though; the devil's trap would hold until they'd been fully destroyed. The single demon that had managed to _escape_ the inferno, however….

A blast of searing heat struck him when the front of the house collapsed, and he dismissed it with a sharp flick of his wrist before he thought better of the action. He _should_ have ignored the discomfort to his shell and conserved his strength, but there were still times when he still forgot the new limits on his powers, limitations exacerbated by the need to use a good portion of his strength just to conceal himself from his brothers and sisters. He believed that he enough strength to deal with the last demon without disturbing those wards, but it would be eating into his reserves more than he'd like. This side trip in his search for Father, brought on when he'd happened across a quartet of low-level demons in an out of the way Texas town, was taking far more out of him than he'd expected.

He shook his head, putting aside the thought, and closed his eyes and focused on the fading taint of the last demon. It was moving away from his position quickly—probably as quickly as the thing could go—but he was still faster.

He felt it pause for a fraction of a second, possibly trying to ascertain whether it had managed to elude him, and he readied himself and shifted to its location. He would not let it escape ag—

A faint whistling sound was the only warning he had, and he flung himself backwards even before he recognized that the sound came from a metal pipe being swung at his head. The man the demon had chosen to possess was reasonably large—several inches taller and several dozen pounds heavier than his shell—and apparently the demon thought that its chances of survival would be greater if it fought.

He feinted to the side, letting the demon's backswing put its arm in range, and then wrenched the piece of metal away. It posed a greater danger to his shell than the demon itself; he'd found that his ability to heal even his own shell had been greatly reduced from what he was accustomed to. Of course, the fact that his ability to heal had never been among the strongest in his family didn't help matters either.

Rather than attempting to rescue its weapon, the demon lunged for him bare-handed, catching him by the throat and slamming him up against a building. He locked both of his hands around the thing's wrists, attempting to maintain his grip long enough to rip the demon away from the human it was possessing and send it back to Hell. Unfortunately it seemed to realize his intention, because after another slam that rocked his head back against the wall, it threw him to the side with enough force to make him lose his hold.

He rolled on impact and decided that as long as the demon didn't attempt to flee, it would be best to maintain a defensive strategy for the time being. Let it expend some of its strength without making the same sacrifice himself.

At first, it seemed a wise strategy, as the thing vacillated between fierce lunges and equally quick retreats, but unfortunately it was stronger, or at least more desperate, than he'd realized. A clear misjudgment on his part, given that that the thing was fighting for its life. During one particularly wild charge it managed to snag the collar of his coat, and before he could rectify the situation he was again flung into the wall.

The human expression 'saw stars' suddenly took on meaning as the force of the impact stunned him for a fraction of a second, and that was enough to let it get its hands around _his_ throat. It appeared that it had forgotten what he could do, though; because it was now well within his range. Before it could toss him away again, he brought his hands up, planted his palms on its chest, and _pulled_.

And nothing happened.

Apparently trapping the three other demons earlier had taken more out of him than he'd realized, and for a moment he and the demon just stared at each other. And then it grinned—a distinctly unpleasant sight—and began to tighten its grip. It might not be able to kill him, but it could hurt him, and if he was no longer even capable of exorcising a demon….

Rather than continuing to pull, he forced himself to focus, and, drawing on every last bit of strength that wasn't going to his wards, called fire.

It barely had time to replace its smile with a scream, and he gasped as the grip on his throat fell away and he collapsed to the pavement. So much for his hope that this fight would not completely deplete his reserves.

He remained on the ground for several minutes before pushing himself to his feet slowly and moving to stand against the wall, opening himself as fully as he dared to the world. It would replenish him, given time, but until then he would remain here.

No sooner had he made that decision than a bright light shined from the left, and he twisted to frown at the source. This might, perhaps, be an appropriate time for one of the less polite greetings that he'd learned from Dean.

"Hello?" a man's voice asked from behind the light. "Is someone there?" The light moved around, finally landing on him, and there were footfalls as the man came closer. "Are you all right? I could have sworn I heard a scream coming from this direction." He paused for a moment. "Is that smoke I smell?"

"Yes," Castiel agreed. If he'd had the energy, he could have summoned a breeze to disperse the heavy smell of smoke that still clung to his clothing from the fire, but at the moment that seemed a rather extravagant gesture. It cost him nothing to tolerate the annoyance.

"The factories all closed hours ago; do you mind if I ask what you're doing down here at this time of night?"

He considered the question, but there was no sense of possession from the figure and, despite the fact that he would prefer to be left to recover privately, no real reason to conceal his purpose. "No."

Silence reigned for several seconds, and then the man spoke again, more slowly this time. "What are you doing down here at this time of night?"

"The last of the demons fled into this area, and I tracked it here in order to destroy it." He indicated the smear of ash amidst the other smudges on the pavement, barely visible even in the flashlight's harsh beam, all that remained of the last demon.

There was silence for another minute, and then, "Sir, have you been drinking?"

He turned to face the man fully. "No. Do you think I should?" Normally it was not an issue, but as he would have to horde his strength for some time in order to maintain his wards, perhaps it would be best to use mortal means to relieve some of his shell's discomfort.

The man came closer, and with the bright light no longer shined directly at his eyes, Castiel could make out a uniform with some sort of badge on the front. "I think maybe you should come with me," the man said.

Castiel's frown deepened as a hand wrapped around his upper arm, but as he'd already noted, the man was not possessed. He also sensed no malicious intent, and after a moment, he nodded slightly and allowed the man to lead him out into a more well-lit area. It took less energy to simply acquiesce.

"Eric, what've you got there?" a woman's voice called.

"Found this guy just standing in the alley staring at the wall," the man with Castiel—Eric, apparently—said. "Says he's been chasing demons."

For some reason he sounded vaguely amused, although Castiel wasn't entirely certain what he might be amused _about_. It was hardly a humorous subject.

"Ah." The woman, wearing a uniform identical to Eric's, came closer. "You know, this'll be the third drunk we've picked up tonight. Apparently there's nothing else to do in town this weekend."

The man shrugged slightly. "Says he's not drunk, and I can't smell any alcohol. Plenty of _smoke_, but not alcohol."

She frowned, staring up into Castiel's eyes for a moment. "Sir, have you taken any drugs?"

"No."

Eric shrugged again and then released his grip on Castiel's arm as he turned to address him. "I'm Officer Anderson, and this is my partner Officer Stewart. What's your name?"

"Castiel."

"Is that your first or your last name?" Officer Stewart asked, pulling out a small notebook.

"It is the only name I have."

"Ah. Okay." She wrote something quickly. "Do you live around here?"

"No."

"Well, what's your address?"

"I don't have an address."

"Do you have any kind of identification with you? Maybe an ID card, a credit card, a _library_ card…?"

"No."

She tapped her pen against the pad of paper and then let her arms fall to her sides. "Do you think you could you tell me a little bit more about these…demons…you were chasing? How many of them were there? Do you see them often?"

"There were four, in total, none of which I believe I've encountered before." If he had, he would almost certainly have destroyed them then. "They were not particularly strong individually but were able to work together more effectively than I had anticipated. I was able to trap three in a devil's trap in the home of one of the men possessed and destroyed them with a fire, but the last escaped and fled to this area. I was able to destroy it as well," he hastened to assure her as she exchanged a somewhat alarmed glance with Officer Anderson just before he hurried over to a car parked along the street and climbed inside.

"Sir—do you mind if I call you Castiel?" Officer Stewart nodded as he shook his head slightly. "Thank you. Castiel, I know you said that you hadn't taken any drugs, but are you on any medications?"


	3. Sam: Calling about your cousin

_Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed. Slight tinkering with geography in this chapter, in regards to the location of a certain ghost town._

* * * * *

Sam shifted in his seat, staring out at the scenery. It seemed like he should recognize it, but he just…didn't. Or at least, he didn't recognize it as any different from the scenery he'd seen along every other half-deserted highway in the Midwest, anyway. He shifted again and then was shaken out of his reverie by the car swerving off the road and coming to an abrupt halt. "Dean? Is something wrong?"

"You tell me! I've been trying to get your attention for the past five minutes and it's like you aren't even hearing me. Not to mention that you were fine yesterday, but today you're squirming around in your seat like you've got ants in your pants." He smirked suddenly. "Or do you just need another booster shot? I've heard the cla—"

Sam cut him off with an irritated glare—he suspected that it would be _months_ before Dean stopped finding humor in that situation—and made a sharp gesture out the windshield. "Look around, Dean."

Dean dutifully looked. "Grass. Dirt. Few trees." He turned back to stare at Sam. "What's your point?"

"No, Dean. _Look_. None of this looks familiar to you?" He hadn't exactly _driven_ here before, and it had been night when they'd left it behind them, but maybe Dean would recognize something. It seemed as though there _had_ to be something to show that it wasn't just any other road. Which, thinking about it from a rational perspective was kind of stupid, but he couldn't help how he felt.

"No." Dean gave him an odd look. "It's the same thing you see along every highway we've ever been on. What's the big deal?"

"I didn't realize it when I saw the newspaper article, but I was checking the map at breakfast for some idea of which trails the hikers might have taken, and…." He trailed off, shaking his head. He couldn't believe that he hadn't even thought of it when he'd seen the article in that stupid tabloid.

"And _what?_" Dean prompted.

A semi roared past, giving him a reprieve before he had to answer. Unfortunately it was a very temporary one. "Cold Oak," he finally said.

Dean frowned. "Uh…does it want a sweater?"

Sam opened his mouth to snap at him, only to see Dean go suddenly pale.

"Oh, _shit_. You don't mean—"

"Azazel's little battleground," he agreed with a tight nod. Not that he'd know what the place was called when Azazel had first kidnapped him, but that had been where it had all started. Or at least that had always felt like the start to him, even if he had started having psychic dreams well before then. In Cold Oak, South Dakota was where he'd learned that his psychic visions came from demon blood in his veins, in Cold Oak was where he had _died_, and not far from Cold Oak was where Dean had made his deal. Intellectually he knew that Azazel's plans had predated even his birth—it wasn't the old ghost town's fault—but….

"We'll pass right by the turnoff in another couple hours," he heard himself say. "And the town where the people who found those hikers are from is right on the other side of the North Dakota border."

"_Shit_." Dean repeated. He was silent for several minutes, and then, reluctantly, "Think we should check it out?"

He was almost glad that Dean had made the suggestion, since it meant that he didn't have to. "Yeah." He let out an even breath. "Yeah, we probably should. There was a demon there killing off the other psychic kids…originally it was doing it because Ava ordered it to, and it ran off when Jake killed her, but maybe it got a taste for it."

Dean muttered something unpleasant under his breath and then banged his hands against the steering wheel a few times. Which was about how Sam was feeling as well. Sam stared out the windshield as another semi drove past and then shook his head. "But maybe we should put that off until tomorrow. We can check with the sheriff first; maybe it _is_ just a coincidence that those people happened to get killed off mysteriously in this area." Not that he believed that, even for a second—and from a quick glance over at Dean he didn't either—but he really wanted a little more time to steel himself before facing that place again.

"Good idea," Dean said after a moment. "If we just keep driving, it'll be mid-afternoon when we get into town. Tonight we should probably just get our motel room and have a look around the place. Maybe swing by and check out the bodies. Tomorrow we can go to the police station first thing and see what information they have that wasn't in the papers, and _then_ we'll swing back out here." He nodded again and restarted the car, pulling back out onto the road on before continuing in a forced-cheerful voice. "In fact, you know what I _really_ want, before that motel room? Food. We haven't passed anything that looks good for lunch, and there's no way in hell there was any actual sausage in that breakfast omelet."

Sam gave him a sideways look, but he more than willing to let himself be distracted. "So that's why you got a second?"

"Oh, yeah, Mr. Garden Salad."

* * * * *

Sam lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling. The badly pitted, stained ceiling, but that wasn't exactly uncommon in the motels they stayed in. They hadn't done much besides a quick walk around the town after their early dinner—apparently the coroner's office was closed on Sundays except for emergencies and they weren't about to break in in broad daylight—but so far there didn't seem to be anything about the place to set off any alarms. Well, aside from the ones that were already ringing loud and clear about being so close to _that_ place. And Dean was just as jumpy as he was, as hard as he was trying not to show it. He snorted and refolded his hands under his head. Neither of them was going to sleep well tonight.

Dean had called the shower first, as soon as they checked into the motel, and judging by the amount of time that had passed since then seemed to be doing his best to use up all the hot water in the entire place. Normally that was something that Sam would complain about, especially since he'd been cooped up in a hot car all day too, but at the moment he just couldn't bring himself to care.

The turnoff to Cold Oak had looked like nothing. An overgrown dirt road that he probably wouldn't even have seen if he hadn't been looking for it. Dean had seen it too, he knew—he'd spent the next five miles refusing to look anywhere but the road straight ahead—but he doubted that one in ten other travelers would have.

He couldn't help but wonder if anyone knew what had happened there. If the bodies—Andy's, Lily's, everybody's—had ever been removed. Or burned. Or something. Bobby might have taken care of it, though, or contacted somebody else to do it. Between the opening of the Devil's Gate, and finding out that he'd been brought back from the dead, and learning what Dean had traded to _get_ him back…well, he'd just never thought to ask.

The shrill ring of a phone distracted him, and he checked his quickly before digging Dean's out of his jacket pocket. He more than half expected Bobby, or maybe even Ellen, but the number was unlisted. With a frown he put it to his ear. "Hello?"

"Is this Dean Winchester?" a man's voice, not one that Sam recognized, asked.

"Uh, may I ask what this is about?"

"My name is Officer Kent, from the Longmont Correctional Facility. I need to speak to a Mr. Dean Winchester."

Sam tried to remember if either he or Dean had ever been in any trouble anywhere called Longmont. He was fairly sure that _he_ hadn't been—he wasn't even sure what state it was in—but they had been apart for a couple weeks and it was possible that Dean had run into an issue with some local authorities that he hadn't bothered to mention. It happened on occasion, especially when you regularly lied about your identity and hustled pool and poker.

As far as he knew they were both still considered dead by government law enforcement agencies, and he knew that _he'd_ prefer to keep it that way, but the man did have Dean's number and had asked for him by name, so….

"He's busy at the moment; this is his brother, Sam. Is there something that I can help you with?"

He heard some noise on the other end—from what he could make out, the man who'd called was asking for approval from someone—but he couldn't make out many of the words. A moment later, the man spoke to him again. "I'm calling about your cousin."

"Cousin?"

"He's given his name as Castiel."

"Cas?" Sam frowned. "Uh, yeah, sure, he's our cousin." It was a more reasonable relationship than 'he raised my brother out of Hell,' anyway. "Is he all right?"

"I'm afraid that he was arrested early this morning."

"_What?_" He turned towards the bathroom. "Dean! Get out here!"

He heard the water shut off even as the man on the other end of the line spoke again. "Physically he seems fine, but psychologically…well, I'm afraid that he's a little confused. He, uh, seems to think that he's an angel."


	4. Dean: Go google God

_Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed._

* * * * *

Dean took the time to throw on jeans and a shirt before opening the bathroom door —that hadn't been Sam's 'there's a demon in our motel room get out here _now'_ yell—but he didn't bother to put his knife in his pocket. It hadn't exactly been a 'hey, the pizza's here' yell either.

When he stepped out into the main room, though, he found Sam alone, holding a phone to his ear. "Sammy? What's wrong? Is it Bobby?" Except that Sam wouldn't have yelled for him if Bobby was calling about a new case, he'd just have waited until he finished his shower. Had something happened to Bobby?

He felt his breath catch. It was bad enough that they were within spitting distance of Cold Oak and all he'd been able to think about since he'd seen that turnoff was just how _wrong_ things had gone there…if something had happened to Bobby too, he didn't know what they'd do. Granted that he'd sworn he wouldn't do anything stupid like offing himself, but what if something had attacked him? He had the best warded house that Dean had ever seen—complete with panic room—but there was always _something_ out there.

"Bobby?" Sam frowned and shook his head and then went back to listening to whatever the person on the other end of the line was saying for a moment before moving the phone away from his ear slightly to address Dean. "Uh, Bobby's fine, at least as far as I know. Cas, on the other hand, got arrested this morning."

"I—what?" It took him a moment to tear his mind away from his previous line of thought, and even longer to wrap it around this new development. Cas _arrested?_ "What the hell did he _do?_" He wasn't exactly the get-roaring-drunk-and-pick-a-fight type. Hell, Dean wasn't even sure that Cas _could_ get drunk. And how had the police caught him, anyway? Last he looked, holy oil wasn't exactly standard issue among members of the law enforcement community.

Sam shrugged, still obviously half-listening to the person on the phone. "The primary charge is arson, but apparently there's the possibility of others being added soon. He's being pretty evasive on that part…apparently they have some questions about Cas' mental state that they want answered first. Given that, you know, he's insisting that he's an angel."

"He wouldn't." Dean closed his eyes and shook his head. "No, never mind, he probably _would_. Shit." He really needed to have a talk with that angel. There were certain things you just didn't say to the police. That you didn't say to _anyone_. "Give me that." He snatched the phone away from Sam and put it to his ear. "Cas? What the hell happened? Did you up and smite the wrong person, or what?"

"This is Officer Kent, with the Longmont Correctional Facility," a man's rather irritated voice said from the other end. "And I don't think that it's healthy for you to cater to his delusions in that fashion."

"Yeah, well, I don't care what you think. Put Cas on."

"I—"

There was a thump, a clatter, and then, "Dean?"

Dean rolled his eyes and hoped that the prison guard hadn't hit his head too hard on the way down. Then again, having Cas knock the guy unconscious was way faster than arguing with him, so…. "What the hell is going on? What happened?"

There was the sound of shouting in the background, and then a slightly distracted, "Where are you?"

He checked the faded writing on the room key. "Uh—Southside Motel, Dover, North Dakota. Room 112."

No sooner had he said the words than Cas was in front of him. Wearing handcuffs and looking rather more rumpled than usual.

Dean caught Sam's eye, and both of them broke down laughing in the same instant, while Cas looked on. Although despite his comment of, "I fail to see the humor in this situation," Dean was almost positive that he saw a glint of amusement in his eyes.

Something squawked on the other end of the line, and Dean snapped his phone shut quickly. The last thing they needed was someone tracing the call. That done, he turned to address Cas. "Once again, what the hell happened?"

"Yeah, that guy said you were being charged with _arson_?" Sam chimed in.

Cas shook his head and took a seat on one of the beds. Which, when Dean thought about it, seemed a little odd, but he was more interested in how the angel had managed to land himself in prison. He caught the lock-picks that Sam tossed him automatically and knelt to unlatch the cuffs.

Cas watched him curiously until the first cuff released and then shook his head. "The fire was necessary to destroy the demons. I attempted to make that clear, but I don't believe that the officers understood. They kept trying to send me somewhere, but a doctor disagreed…he insisted that I needed medication first." He frowned slightly. "He never made it clear what he felt that I needed medication for. I've been very careful to maintain this shell to the best of my ability."

Sam snorted—and Dean agreed, given that the 'best of Cas' ability' had thus far included getting himself blown to bits, even if that had only happened because Raphael was a jackass—and sank down on the other bed. "Cas, he thought you were nuts."

"I find it highly unlikely that anyone would associate me with a food product."

"What? No. I mean he thought you were crazy. You know, batshit _insane_?" Sam shook his head. "Never mind. Just don't ever mention demons to the police, all right? Just…don't."

Cas frowned but gave a small nod of agreement, and Dean decided to redirect their attention to the important part of the whole conversation as opposed to the cops-are-generally-useless part. "What demons? Are you all right?"

"I am fine. I was able to destroy all four."

"Four demons, not bad," Dean had to agree after a moment. "So you set a bunch of people on fire and that's when they decided to arrest you?" Somehow he had no trouble seeing Cas walking up to someone possessed, planting a hand on the guy's forehead, and doing just that. Subtlety was _not_ one of his strengths.

Cas dipped his head slightly. "I trapped three of the four in a devil's trap, and was able to burn them there, but the fourth escaped and I was forced to chase it down. It was immediately after its destruction when Officer Anderson approached me and asked me what happened."

"And you told him." If Cas had a birthday, the first thing Dean was getting him was a copy of 'Lying for Dummies.' Hell, if he _didn't_ have a birthday he was still getting a copy. Dean shook his head. "Never mind no telling the police about demons, no more talking to the police _period, _okay?" Between his suggestion about telling the local cops about what had really happened to Raphael's shell back in Maine, and now this mess, it would be best if Cas had as little to do with authority figures as humanly possible. Angel-ly possible. Whatever.

Cas nodded again.

"So how goes your search?" Sam asked. "Is that how you found the demons?"

He gave a slight shake of his head. "I've had no success thus far. The demons were simply…incidental."

"Well, at least they're out of the way," Dean offered. "One less thing to deal with. Um—what was with the whole with calling us from the jail, anyway? I mean, why didn't you just…pop out…when they tried to arrest you?" It wasn't like he'd shown any aversion to doing in and out in the past. More often than not when it was most irritating to the person he was dealing with.

Cas actually looked slightly uncomfortable at that, and he frowned slightly.

"Are you sure you're all right?"

"I am fine," Cas repeated. "Simply…drained. Dealing with the demons took more of my energy than I expected, and I did not want to shift without somewhere specific to shift _to_."

Okay, granted that a guy in the process of being arrested probably wasn't going to be allowed to pull out his cell and have a quick chat, but…. "So why didn't you just go to Bobby's?" he asked, seeing the same question in Sam's eyes. "He wouldn't have minded." Well, actually he'd probably have called Cas an idjit a few times, but that was just Bobby. "And he could have put you in touch with us."

"I am drained, as I said. I was not entirely certain that I would have the energy to shift more than once." He didn't meet either of their eyes. "It seems that I was correct."

"So, what, you're stuck with us for a couple days?" Sam asked.

"Will that be a problem?"

Dean snorted. They were headed for a demon's old stomping-grounds, and an angel—a tired angel, maybe, but still an angel—was asking if it was okay if he stayed with them. He shook his head. "Nah, that's cool."

"Are you in the middle of a hunt?"

"Maybe," Sam said. "Probably. Some hikers were found…skinned…a couple days ago. And Cold Oak—where Azazel held his little deathmatch with me and the other kids—is just on the other side of the border. We don't know anything for sure, yet."

Cas nodded again, more firmly this time. "I will stay with you."

* * * * *

"Dude, go sit over there." It wasn't as though he minded Cas being in the motel room while he and Sam slept. Hell, he'd woken up more than once to find the angel just sort of standing there, which was _way_ weirder than Cas happening to be in the room when he fell asleep was. But having Cas sitting on the edge of his bed staring at him was a little more than he could handle.

"Why don't you go use the computer?" Sam suggested as he turned down the light and began doing his best to beat his pillow into some sort of acceptable shape. "You know how it works, right?"

"Yes."

Dean gave up on his own pillow and rolled up his jacket and stuck it under his head. "Well, go google God then."

Cas was opening his mouth to respond—most probably a reprimand of some form—when there was a heavy knock at the door.

"Sheriff's department, open up!"


	5. Cas: They've got problems

_Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed._

* * * * *

Castiel saw Dean and Sam exchange glances, and then Dean stood, grabbed his arm, and dragged him towards the bathroom.

"What are you doing?" he demanded. He was not accustomed to being manhandled, and he didn't particularly like it. If it had been anyone but Dean, he would already have taken steps to deal with it.

"Stay here," Dean ordered, ignoring his question as he shoved him into the dark bathroom and pulled the door partially shut. "Be quiet."

There was a creaking sound as Dean sank back onto the mattress, followed by a click, presumably from the latch on the motel room door. "C'n I help you?" Sam asked someone, sounding unaccountably confused.

"I'm Sheriff Tyler, from the Country Sheriffs' Office. Are you Dean Winchester?"

"That's me," Dean said, sounding no more alert than Sam, although from the creak the bed made he had come to his feet again. "What's the problem?"

"Yeah, we've been driving all _day_," Sam added, his voice bordering on a whine. "I just managed to fall _asleep_."

The sheriff cleared his throat. "Well, I'm sorry to wake you, but I received a call from the Longmont Correctional Facility about forty-five minutes ago."

"Longmont? Hey, isn't that where that jerk called from earlier?" Dean asked.

"Who _cares_?" Sam still sounded remarkably annoyed. "It was just a stupid prank call."

There was a click, and Castiel peered around the half-closed door to see the sheriff stepping further into the motel room and shutting the main door behind him. "Prank call?" Sheriff Tyler asked.

"I don't know; it was maybe a couple hours ago," Dean said, as Sam muttered something under his breath. "Some idiot calls, says our cousin was arrested for being an angel, or setting an angel on fire, or something like that, and then hangs up on us."

"Setting an angel on fire?" Now the sheriff sounded rather confused.

"Dude, I don't know. I mean, as far as prank calls go, that's not even _funny_."

"Well, I'm afraid the call I got wasn't any prank. Do you know a Mr….Castiel?"

"Yeah, sure." Castiel could almost see Dean's shrug. "He's our cousin."

"Where did you last see him?"

"Um, I guess it was a month or so ago. Over in Ohio. We ran into one of his brothers and ended up staying for a couple days."

There was the rustling of paper, and then, "Does this brother have a name?"

"Gabriel." Dean almost spit the name. "Doubt he's spoken to Cas since then either though…their family has some serious issues."

"Are you _sure_ the call you got wasn't a prank?" Sam asked suddenly, sounding slightly more alert. "His brothers are real dicks; they'd probably think setting us all up was hilarious."

Castiel's first instinct was to protest that description of his siblings, but unfortunately, with the sole exception of Anna, thus far none of them had behaved in a manner that would give either of the Winchesters any other impression. A familiar twinge of guilt ran through him at the thought of Anna—it was highly unlikely that she would have been taken if it hadn't been for him—but he pushed it aside and returned his attention to Dean and Sam and the sheriff. What was done could not be undone, no matter how he might feel about it.

Apparently the sheriff hadn't been entirely convinced by Sam's comment, because after a moment Sam snorted and continued. "Hell, Zachariah once sent _him_ to interview for some sort of corporate bigwig job."

Castiel peered around the edge of the door in time to see Sam jerk a thumb in Dean's direction. He suspected that Dean rolled his eyes at the gesture, but since Dean's back was to him there was no way to be certain.

The sheriff cleared his throat, glancing down at a pad of paper in his hands as Castiel caught Sam's eye. Sam glared and jerked his head slightly, and Castiel ducked back behind the door.

"I'll check on that," Sheriff Tyler said after a moment. "Do you have addresses or phone numbers for any of these brothers?"

"We don't really keep in touch," Dean said flatly. "Like I said, they've got problems. Gabriel was in Ohio—Wellington, Ohio—the last time we saw him, but I think he was planning to take off right after we left. Raphael was up in Maine…." Dean paused. "He might still be there, actually. And then Zach…who the hell knows. Or cares."

Even if Dean could be convinced to accept the rest of his brothers—and he suspected that that alone would take some sort of miracle—Castiel doubted that he would _ever_ be able to tolerate Zachariah. Dean had refused to say more than the absolute minimum required for understanding about the future that Zachariah had taken him to, but it had obviously upset him greatly.

"Oh, Zachariah's probably around somewhere," Sam said with a sigh. "Apparently he's gotten big with the Jehovah's Witnesses lately."

"Hm." There was a scratching sound, most probably the sheriff writing something down. "Will the two of you be staying in town for a few days in case I have any more questions, or are you planning to move on in the morning? If so, I'm going to need a contact number where I can reach you."

"We were planning to stick around for a day or two," Dean said, and then, oddly casually, in Castiel's estimation, "Hey, this place is pretty small so maybe you'd know. Have there been any…accidents…or anything reported recently?"

"Accidents?"

"We were supposed to meet up with a friend of mine from school down in Kansas City yesterday," Sam said. "But he never showed up, and he hasn't answered any of the messages I left on his phone. Figured we'd head up this way and see what was keeping him since we didn't have anything else planned, but none of the hotels we tried have him registered as a guest."

"But you think he was here at some point?"

"Well, I know he'd wanted to do some hiking in this area, at least. Something about an old ghost town."

"Psych major." Dean snorted.

"_Sociology_, and he's doing his dissertation on culture and folklore of the American Midwest," Sam said, now sounding rather exasperated.

"Whatever. Your friends are geeks. So have there been any accidents recently?"

"What's your friend's name?" The sheriff's tone sounded rather guarded, and Castiel peered around the edge of the door again.

"John," Sam answered immediately, and then caught Castiel's eye and glared again. "Uh, Smith."

"Your friend's name is John Smith?" Sheriff Tyler asked, and then sighed. "Was anyone with him? Maybe he went hiking with a group?"

"He'd said something about meeting up with his brother and a couple friends of theirs, but I don't know if they were all going to go hiking or not."

"Do you know any of the others' names?"

"His brother's name is Dave," Dean said after a moment. "Other than that…Sam, do you remember Dave's girlfriend's name? Susan? Sharon?"

"I thought it was Sandy," Sam disagreed. "Sheriff, you sound like you're asking these questions for a reason. _Was_ there an accident?"

"I'm afraid I'm going to need the two of you to come by my office in the morning. It's just down off fifth, beside the dry cleaners."

"Uh, sure," Sam agreed, glancing at the sheriff and then giving another sharp jerk of his head, clearly an indication that Castiel should move deeper into the shadows behind the door. "Maybe nine or so?"

"That would be fine. Thank you for your time."

Dean shut and locked the door behind him, and then Sam threw up his hands. "Damn it, Cas, you were supposed to be _hiding_!"

He judged it to be safe enough to exit the bathroom and rejoin the boys. "I was."

"No, sticking your head around the door and out into plain view is _not_ hiding. He's going to find out that that call was no prank, and we do not need him comparing descriptions of the guy he found hiding in the bathroom with what the Longmont police are going to tell him!"

He had merely peered around the edge of the door, but Sam didn't seem particularly interested in arguing semantics, so he remained silent. It seemed that that had been a wise course of action, because after a moment Sam threw himself back down on his bed with a groan.

"So now we're concerned friends," Dean said, dropping back down on his bed as well. "I mean, I know we couldn't pull off Feds, not after he'd seen us in this place, but concerned friends don't get _half_ as much info. And we're going to have to come up with more background info and shit too."

"Yeah, well, if it's a skin walker he probably doesn't know too much anyway. What I want to know is what we're supposed to say when he figures out that that call really was from the Longmont Correctional Facility, though." He frowned. "Where _is_ Longmont, anyway?"

"Texas," Castiel offered.

"Great."

Dean shrugged against the mattress. "Say 'oops,' I guess. We'll leave Cas here when we go down to talk to him tomorrow morning, and if he asks any more questions we'll just keep insisting that we thought it was a prank. And that we haven't seen Cas in weeks. Cas, we're going to have to give him your phone number, so you need to turn your phone off and keep it off, all right? Otherwise he'll be able to trace it. We'll get you a new one when we get a chance."

"At least the car has been parked right in front of the motel since we got here, so it's not like he can claim that one of us snuck off to some airport to pick him up or anything," Sam said with a sigh, before picking up his coat and digging his phone out of it. "I'll give Bobby a call, let him know that we might need him to play concerned parent for John and Dave Smith tomorrow."

* * * * *

"Well, _that_ was useful," Dean declared, throwing open the motel room door and dropping down on the nearest bed. "Hey, Cas."

"Dean. Sam." Neither of them seemed to expect him to rise from his chair, so he stayed where he was.

Sam returned his greeting with a nod and turned to shut and lock the motel room door before continuing the conversation. "At least he bought that we had no idea where Cas was."

"Yeah, that's just great. But we still don't know a damn thing about those bodies that were found. I mean, did you hear him talking to Bobby? He didn't make _one_ definitive statement, just kept asking about John and Dave. Height, weight, personal effects…we don't even know if what Bobby made up even _matches_ one of the corpses. It was like a weird kind of verbal judo or something. And you know he's going to yell at us the next time we talk to him for _not_ giving him any vital stats."

"What do you want me to say? Maybe we should have broken into the Coroners' Office last night, but neither of us thought about it. And we couldn't exactly do it on the way to the police station this morning."

Dean grumbled something that sounded distinctly uncomplimentary.

"Well, unless you want to wait until tonight when we _can_ get in to start this hunt, I think we're going to have to follow the trail the hikers were found on. See if we can find any clues the police missed."

"The trail to Cold Oak." Dean swore and then got up off the bed, pushed past his brother, and stalked into the bathroom.

"He seems displeased," Castiel observed.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Gee, you think?"

"Yes."


	6. Sam: I feel dead people

_Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed, and thanks to homeric for doing a read-through for me and making some suggestions._

* * * * *

Sam nodded at the boulder just off the edge of the trail, marked off by crime scene tape on plastic pickets. "Well, that was difficult."

"It was not," Cas disagreed, and Sam bit back a sigh. There were certainly angels that could detect, and hell, even _use_, sarcasm, but he doubted very much that Cas would ever be one of them.

As it happened, the closest thing to 'trouble' that they'd encountered on their hike, aside from Dean's intermittent bitching about the terrain, was maneuvering around the squad car parked at the trail head. It had obviously been intended to discourage anyone from taking the trail, but given that the officer _in_ the squad car had been asleep, it hadn't provided much more than a moment of amusement. He shook his head and ducked under the line of tape, considering the rock. It was maybe seven or eight feet high and had to be a good twenty feet wide, as much a plateau as a boulder . "Let's just check it out." At least up there they'd be out of this damn brush...he didn't know how many burrs his jeans had picked up as they'd walked. And his jacket wasn't looking much better.

Dean made it to the top first, standing and immediately grimacing and scrubbing his hands against his jeans. "Oh, _gross_,"

"No joke." The flat top was covered with a fine brownish dust that most definitely _wasn't_ sand, and Sam mimicked Dean's actions. "Hasn't been any rain here the last couple days, I guess."

"Not much wind either," Dean agreed. "Not down in this little valley, anyway."

"This is not correct," Cas said, apparently unconcerned by the dried blood the climb up the rock had deposited on his hands. Sam found it a little odd that he'd actually _climbed_, but…well, he did say he needed to regain his strength.

"No kidding," Dean returned, crouching and using his knife to scrape away some of the dust from the rock. "Human sacrifice is kind of low on the 'good way to spend a Saturday night' scale."

Cas frowned. "That is not what I meant. It is not…." He trailed off, shaking his head. "I have some…sense…of death."

"What, like 'I feel dead people'?"

Sam rolled his eyes, and Dean grinned in return.

"Well, it can't be 'I _see_ dead people'—we do that all the time."

Cas' frown deepened. "English is not…precise. I have no true term for this sense."

"Can you describe it?" Sam asked.

"All death has a…feel."

Judging by his expression, Sam suspected that he would have preferred another term, but after a moment he continued.

"A murder, however…there is a sense of _wrongness_ that accompanies it. It is…a loss. An emptiness. The life that should have been." He shook his head again. "It is difficult to explain, but there were not five people killed here."

Dean's eyes narrowed, and he straightened. "Are you sure?"

Cas cocked his head slightly. "That five people were _never_ killed here, no. But there were no murders here within the last two weeks."

He said that with absolute certainty, and Sam took another look around. The entire top of the boulder was covered with dried blood, except where the chalk outlines of five bodies had rubbed it away, and he very much doubted that the police could have mistaken ketchup and mannequins for blood and human remains. "Well, someone—or something—_was_ here. Any ideas? Changelings?" They definitely had nonhuman characteristics, but maybe skinned it wasn't so obvious. And if they were Changelings, that might explain why they hadn't been identified yet.

"What if the bodies were human, but they were killed somewhere else and then _brought_ here," Dean suggested. "Would you be able to tell that?"

"No," Cas said after a moment. "I would only sense the death around the actual murder site."

"It would kind of ruin the whole idea of a sacrifice to move the bodies to the sacrificial ground _after_ they were dead, though," Sam said. "I mean, the freshly-spilled blood is generally the point of the whole thing." Well, that or the still-beating heart, or the unspoiled liver, or something equally nasty, but the principle still held: a live sacrifice meant a _live_ sacrifice.

Dean shrugged and then indicated what looked like painted symbols on the rock, all muted by the layer of dried blood on top of them. "You recognize any of those? Maybe there's some obscure ritual that requires a dumping ground."

"Well, they're primarily pagan, or at least pagan in origin," Sam said after a minute. "Except for the peace symbol; that's just weird." There were only half-a-dozen symbols in total, but they'd been repeated multiple times, apparently once for each body. None of them pointed to anything immediately recognizable, but he pulled out his phone and snapped a couple pictures for Bobby anyway. Maybe he'd know something.

"You know, it would be kind of hard to haul five bodies down this trail," Dean said, looking over the edge of the boulder. "I mean, there were more than a couple spots back there where we had to _walk_ single file. There's no way a four-wheeler or anything like that came through. And we've got to be five, maybe even six miles from town by now. At least."

Sam nodded absently. "They could have been killed closer than that though, out in the brush somewhere." He kind of doubted that the police had bothered to bring in dogs, not with the bodies all set out neatly here. If Cas wasn't insisting that the people weren't killed on the top of that rock, it wouldn't have occurred to him either. "Or whoever it was could have brought them in from Cold Oak. I don't think we're more than a mile or so away."

From Dean's grimace, that idea had occurred to him as well. "And it could have been more than one person, too. You find yourself a _group_ of crazies, and hauling five bodies gets way easier."

"Nor would it be difficult for a demon to create such an arrangement," Cas pointed out.

"How close will you have to be to the murder site to know that it's there?" Dean asked. "I mean, could we use you a sort of an angelic bloodhound?"

Judging by Cas' expression, he didn't find that comparison particularly flattering, but he didn't actively object. "My range is not what it should be at the moment…perhaps twenty yards. At most; as time passes the feeling lessens, and if these murders happened several days ago as you say, it could be as little as five."

Dean frowned. "And if we waited a couple more days for you to regain your strength?"

"At full strength, as much a hundred yards for a recent murder, but again the feeling lessens with time. I doubt that the increase in my range would provide any advantage given the decrease in strength at the murder site."

"You didn't feel anything as we were walking?" Sam checked. "Maybe something that you weren't thinking about at the time?"

"No."

"Damn." He'd figured that it was a long shot, but it would have made life much easier.

"Circle around here a few times and see if we can pick up a trail, or head down into Cold Oak?" Dean asked.

Sam looked around for a minute. "I vote circle. I'm still hoping we're talking about _one_ person—or thing—in which case I think we're better off looking closer." And despite having made the suggestion, he wasn't any more interested in going back there than Dean was.


	7. Dean: It is everywhere

_Turns out that spending the night in an airport still sucks just as much as it did three years ago. So glad I got to confirm that. Anyway, my bad luck means I got another chapter proofed, so here you go. Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed._

* * * * *

"This is getting ridiculous."

Dean rolled his eyes as Sam finished helping Cas rescue his—once again—brush-entangled trench coat. Of all the inconvenient things to wear while hiking, an ankle-length coat had to be up near the top of the list. "Ridiculous, and we haven't found anything useful." They'd circled the boulder three times now, increasing the distance from it with each pass, and so far they'd discovered absolutely zilch. Cas hadn't felt so much as a twinge. As much as he didn't want to—and he _really_ didn't want to—he was starting to get the feeling that they were going to have to get back on the trail and continue towards Cold Oak.

"Let's get back on the trail and keep going," Sam said with a sigh, removing a few burrs from the sleeve of his coat. "This isn't getting us anywhere. If we don't find anything there, we'll find Cas something more appropriate to wear while hiking and then come back and try again tomorrow."

"If this doesn't work, we'll sneak into the morgue tonight and see if _that_ tells us anything, first," Dean corrected. He didn't like tramping around in the woods on a good day, and days spent searching for bodies—or death sites, at least—were, in general, not good. "You heard back from Bobby about those symbols yet?"

"No, not even a message that he got them." Sam pulled out his phone and checked the screen. "The signal is pretty weak out here, though. He might not be able to get through."

"Figures." Dean watched Cas try and edge around a thorny bush and then grinned slightly. "Cas, your belt is caught again."

Cas looked about as frustrated as he ever did as he pulled it free. "I believe that we should get back on the trail as well."

Despite Cas' head swinging back and forth as they walked—he _was_ doing a pretty good bloodhound impression, although Dean wasn't about to say that out loud—he obviously wasn't sensing anything. And all-too-soon they were heading down a steep hill and into the old ghost town.

Dean hadn't looked around the place much the last time he was here; between Sam dying in his arms and bringing Sam back from the dead and the full impact of the deal he'd made setting in, he'd had a lot more important things on his mind than the local décor. Looking around now…well, it just didn't look like _much_, all things considered. There were a couple dozen obviously abandoned buildings, all bleached to the same muddy gray by the passing of years. The only splash of color was a scrawled graffiti signature on the side of the one nearest the trail, garish against the muted colors around it. They came around the edge of the building and into the town center, and he recognized the old cracked bell he Bobby had used to identify the town.

He glanced over at Sam, who was ignoring the bell and focusing on another building. "What is it?"

"That's where we were hiding. Before Andy was killed, before we knew it was Ava calling the demon, before I knew that Azazel had told _all of us_ that only one person would be allowed to leave town alive. When I actually thought that we actually had a chance." He gave a bark of bitter laughter.

Dean shook his head, not sure what he could say, but before he had to come up with something Sam straightened abruptly and his focus shifted to the building next to the one he'd been staring at.

"What was that?"

Dean frowned. "What was what?"

Sam swung the shotgun off his shoulder and into his arms. "Something just went past that window. You didn't see it?"

"No."

"Nor did I," Cas agreed from just behind his shoulder.

"Do you feel anything?" Dean asked. Maybe it had just been some kid. If there was nothing here but another graffiti artist looking to make his mark, there was no reason to stay.

"No." He frowned. "Well, perhaps. Yes."

Dean rolled his eyes and caught Sam making a similar expression. "Could you narrow that down a little?"

"It is not…death. Not a murder site. But there is something here."

That was enough to make Dean reach for his gun as well. "Which way?"

"It is not…." He shook his head. "It is everywhere."

"Useful." Sam muttered as he shifted to cover their backs.

Dean shook his head and turned towards the building that Sam had indicated. "Well, I guess we might as well start with whatever's in there. Don't suppose you got a clear look at it?"

"I just saw a flash of something light-colored—I only saw it because the rest of the window was dark."

Well, they'd gone into plenty of situations with even less information, Dean supposed, as the three of them began to move forward. They couldn't have been more than ten or fifteen feet from the door when a clatter broke the silence, and a man—human, as far as Dean could tell—crashed through the window beside the door, scrambled to his feet shedding glass shards in all directions, and dashed around the corner of the building.

"Cut him off!" Dean called, running after the man. "_Stop!_"

The order to cut the man off had been directed at Sam, but it was Cas who took off around the other side of the building while Sam followed hard on Dean's heels. It didn't really matter, though, as long as one of them was there to take the guy down.

The man turned sharply, at a right angle with the building, and Dean cursed as he realized that the building was deeper than he'd realized. _Way_ deeper, that looked like a freaking stable on the back. How old was this town? Cas would never make it all the way around before the guy disappeared into the hills. And the guy was _fast_, too, or at least he knew this area way better than a casual visitor should—he didn't even stumble on the rough ground as looked back over his shoulder at Dean and Sam.

There was a clicking sound from off to his right, but before Dean could figure out what Sam thought he was doing, he was flying sideways. The wooden side door of the building they'd been circling splintered and fell aside as he crashed through it, and if he hadn't already been cursing whatever the hell was happening, he'd sure as hell have started then. The door might have been a hundred years older than he was, but it had been pretty damn solid, and his shoulder had gone numb on impact. Fortunately it was his left side rather than his right which meant that his dominant arm was still good for shooting, but that assumed that he could find something to shoot _at_.

His curses were cut off as he hit a wall and all the breath was forced from his lungs. A grunt from beside him told him that Sam had received the same treatment, although a glance to the side—without turning his head, since that didn't seem to possible—showed that he'd managed to hang onto the shotgun. Dean gritted his teeth and struggled against invisible bonds pinning him in place. No skin-walker was doing this, that was for sure. It had to be something—

"Hello, boys."


	8. Cas: I agree with Dean's assessment

_Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed._

* * * * *

It was a relief to be able to move without catching his coat on brush and twigs, Castiel decided, even as he forced his legs to move faster. It would have been _more_ of a relief to simply shift over to the man and capture him that way, but his reserves were still nearly nonexistent. While it was certainly inefficient, running should—eventually—prove just as effective.

Unfortunately, when he circled the building, taking longer than he'd originally expected given that it was considerably deeper than it appeared from the front, he saw no sign of the man. And no sign of Dean or Sam, either. He scanned the area around the building, trying to determine whether they'd doubled back or veered off in some other direction, but there was no indication that they had taken a different path than the one he'd last seen them on. There _was_ a broken door however.

When he got closer, he could see Dean and Sam standing against the wall through what remained of the doorframe. Although Sam's attention was focused elsewhere, Dean saw him, and Castiel frowned as the elder Winchester began rolling his eyes wildly and contorting his mouth. With a shake of his head, he stepped inside to see what the two of them had found. It was strange, though…that the damage to the door almost looked fresh.

"Castiel. So nice of you to join us."

He froze for a moment. So that was what the…presence…he'd sensed when they'd arrived in town was. He forced any sign of shock from his features before he acknowledged his brother. "Zachariah."

Zachariah had probably intended to go completely unnoticed until he chose to reveal himself—in fact he probably hadn't even noticed that he hadn't been—but then again, he never had been very good at the subtle use of power. Unfortunately, that was somewhat academic at this point. Subtlety was unlikely to prove useful now that Zachariah had the Winchesters cornered.

Worse than cornered, he realized abruptly. Dean and Sam weren't _standing_ against the wall, they were pinned there. And not at all pleased about it, judging by the expressions on their faces. It took only a fraction of a second to review his options. Of which he had very few. Even at full strength, he doubted that he would be a match for Zachariah; weakened as he was, he wasn't even entirely sure that he could break the Winchesters free. And even if he could do so, he would have nothing left to help them escape this place.

"I might have known you'd be here with them." The sneer was as clear in Zachariah's voice as it was on his face, and Castiel decided that allowing him to draw out the confrontation was as good a tactic as any.

"How did you find us?" Sam whispered harshly. Apparently their voices were bound as well as their bodies, explaining why Dean had been making those ridiculous faces as opposed to simply shouting a warning.

Zachariah turned back slightly redirecting his attention toward the Winchesters. "Given your…history…with this place, when I noticed supernatural activity I knew it was only a matter of time before you would arrive. It only took a little encouragement on my part." His sneer turned into a self-satisfied smirk.

Sam, unusually enough, was the one to blaspheme at that. Normally Dean was the more vocal with his displeasure, but he just snorted. "You know, we were just telling the sheriff last night what a _dick_ you were."

Zachariah's jaw tightened and his sneer returned. "You have been far, _far_ more trouble than you're worth. I thought I'd already made this perfectly clear, but perhaps I should say it again. You _will_ say 'yes,' you _will_ be Michael's vessel, and this war _will_ be won. I'll not tolerate any more of this nonsense from you."

"Go to Hell."

"As I recall, that was what started all this. "

There was silence for a moment as Zachariah and Dean glared at each other, and then Zachariah's eyes flicked towards Sam.

That was the moment Castiel had been waiting for—and had been fearing—and he centered himself and dropped his wards. They were nothing but a drain on his resources now that his position was known, and he was going to need every bit of energy he could gather to free the Winchesters. Zachariah was obviously planning to use the younger Winchester to force Dean to do his bidding, and he would not allow that.

Zachariah turned slightly at his actions, and he used the fraction of a second of distraction to attack the bindings holding the Winchesters in place. They were more brittle than he'd expected, or perhaps his desperation gave him strength, because both Dean and Sam fell away from the wall almost immediately, gasping.

"How _dare_ you?" Zachariah snarled, his attention neatly diverted from the Winchesters as he took a step in Castiel's direction.

Castiel held his ground. "I believe that I agree with Dean's assessment. You are a dick."

Sam and Dean exchanged glances and then began to approach Zachariah slowly, and it was all that Castiel could do to hold back a very human groan. They should be _escaping_ now…he couldn't hope to hold Zachariah's attention for any great length of time, and the two of them couldn't possibly do anything against him.

Zachariah flicked his fingers, and it was Castiel's turn to slam into a wall. He didn't bother to cushion the impact, instead redirecting what little power he had into shields. It was a futile attempt, and he knew it—with his strength nearly nonexistent they wouldn't hold for more than a moment against whatever Zachariah chose to send against him—but it was the best he could do.

Unfortunately, it looked like his sacrifice was going to be in vain, because Dean and Sam chose that moment to spring at Zachariah. Who sent them both sprawling with absolutely no effort whatsoever. Not even so much as a backwards glance.

Dean rolled on impact, bringing his gun to bear, but being shot in the head didn't affect Zachariah any more than it would any other angel. Nor did the two holes Sam put in his back seconds later do anything of use.

"Apparently it's going to take a little more convincing to make you see things my way," Zachariah said with a smirk in Dean's direction. Castiel saw Sam tense, obviously expecting the same treatment that Castiel's actions had been intended to preempt, and Dean began to move to put himself in front of his brother. And then, unexpectedly, Zachariah swiveled and held out his arm, and a beam of white light struck Castiel in the chest.

His fragile shields held for a fraction of a second before buckling under the onslaught, and he couldn't hold back a gasp as the backlash—and the wave of sheer _power_ Zachariah was projecting—burned back through his channels. And then the shock gave way to pain.


	9. Sam: He's your brother

_My last day sitting in an airport for awhile, so chapters will start coming a normal length of time apart again. Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed._

* * * * *

Zachariah was going to kill Cas in front of them, and there wasn't a damn _thing_ he or Dean were going to be able to do about it. Sam scrambled to reload the shotgun—an automatic reaction drilled into him after years of hunting rather than one prompted by conscious thought, given that Zachariah had already proven that bullets and salt couldn't harm him—but Cas' screams made him awkward and he fumbled the shells. It didn't matter, though. However good seeing the bastard with holes in his major organs would make Sam feel, it wouldn't help get Cas out of that damn white-light vortex. He could barely _see_ him now through the light; if it hadn't been for the screaming he'd almost have believed that Cas was already gone.

Dean threw himself at Zachariah again, clearly intending to club him with the butt of his gun, but the action was no more effective than it had been the first time they'd tried a physical assault. Sam winced as Dean once again slammed into the ground, but the impact didn't seem to do him any harm as he twisted to snarl at Zachariah. "Stop it! Let him _go_!"

Zachariah's smirk grew, the light from his palm not lessening in the least. "What is it worth to you? All you have to do is say 'yes,' and I'll allow him to live. One little word."

Sam had seen that one coming a mile off—pretty much as soon as they'd realized that Zachariah was in town—but he'd expected the bastard to use _him_ to secure Dean's cooperation, not Cas. He grinned dangerously as the shells finally dropped into place and shot Zachariah's all-but-point-blank in the chest, just on principle. _He_ wouldn't have wanted Dean to say 'yes,' no matter what Zachariah did, and he knew Cas wouldn't either.

Dean seemed to realize that as well because he shook his head and swore through gritted teeth before shooting Zachariah in the head a second time. Sam wondered for a fraction of a second just who Zachariah's shell had been before he'd been possessed—and what he thought about this whole mess—but then again, the poor bastard had probably died of shock ten seconds after Zachariah moved in.

If anything, Zachariah actually looked _pleased_ at Dean's rejection, even as he ignored the quickly-closing holes in his and head and chest. "Well, then. What do you think will last longer? Him or your resolve?"

He did something that increased the intensity of the light, to the point that Sam couldn't even look directly at the vortex, and although he'd have called the action impossible a moment ago, Cas' screams somehow intensified. Sam fought down the urge to clamp his hands over his ears to try and block it out.

"Damn it, he's your _brother_!" Dean shouted.

It didn't seem to matter, though, as the roof began to rattle and all the windows—all the ones that had remained intact despite the passage of years, at least—shattered in their frames. Did Zachariah plan to hit Cas with a bolt of _lightning_ next?

Except…. Sam abruptly revised his opinion as he looked back at Zachariah. If anything, the angel looked even more confused than Sam felt; his expression changing from smug to uncertain as the roof tore away and huge cracks opened in the building's walls. The blue sky shining over them startled him for a moment, completely out of place in the middle of this damn torture session.

"What's going on?" Dean yelled, his voice barely audible over the sounds of destruction and Cas' screams.

Sam shook his head. His grip on the shotgun hadn't loosened, but at this point he wasn't even sure where to aim it. Although he noticed that, despite the confusion, the muzzle of _Dean's_ gun remained firmly fixed on Zachariah.

All sound abruptly ceased, with the exception of Cas' screams, and then those cut off as well as a figure imposed itself between Cas and Zachariah's beam of light. "That. Is. _Enough_."

* * * * *

_Okay, short chapter this time, but that was way too good a cliffhanger to let it pass. Any guesses on who _this_ new arrival is?_


	10. Dean: Kind of badass

_Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed. Here's to the holidays, and slightly more time to write than usual.  
_

* * * * *

A squeal made Dean start, and he twisted to glare up at the ceiling hiding a system of pipes that were probably a good twenty years older than he was. He and Sam had both agreed on the necessity of vacating their original motel, given that the sheriff knew where it was, but after hauling an unconscious angel through brush and woodland for seven miles, neither of them had been up for a long drive. They'd ended up in a tiny motel room fifty miles back down the highway…from the outside it had looked decent enough, but by now he was seriously starting to wonder if _shooting_ the plumbing would help.

"Dude, we need to move to another motel," Sam said, joining him in the room with a bag of groceries in each hand. He nudged the door shut with his hip, but it was as warped as the rest of the place and didn't quite manage to latch. With disgusted sigh, he gave it a good kick.

"No shit," Dean agreed, not moving from his lounging position on the second bed. He already knew that it wasn't going to happen…for one, there wasn't another motel anywhere near here that was in any better condition—he'd _looked_—and for another neither of them wanted to move Cas any more unless they had to. Despite the rough flight through the woods and the hurried trip from the car into the motel room so no one would see his unconscious body, he hadn't so much as twitched an eyelid. In two days. Neither of them was taking that as a good sign.

"Here, give this a try," Sam said, pulling something from one of the plastic bags and tossing it in Dean's direction before setting the bags down on the low dresser. "Maybe it'll get a reaction."

Dean caught the bottle automatically and then shifted to sit on the edge of Cas' bed. Outwardly he looked fine, but…two _days_. They'd tried cold compresses, they'd tried hot compresses, they'd tried smelling salts—he still didn't know what corner of the Impala's trunk Sam had dug _those_ out of—and they'd tried pouring water down his throat. Which was damn dangerous since they didn't have any way to ensure that it went into his stomach rather than his lungs, but he was pretty sure Cas didn't really use those lungs anyway. And still, _nothing_.

Of course, they didn't have any idea if any of those things were _supposed_ to do anything to help an unconscious-and-or-comatose angel, which wasn't helping matters either. For all they knew, they should be dancing the Hokey Pokey every morning and _that_ would make everything better. Sam had made him take a nap after he'd voiced that idea, but the fact was that they knew next to nothing about angelic injuries. And all of this was assuming that Cas was still _in there_ somewhere, and it wasn't just whatever remained of Jimmy that they were trying to awaken. He was starting to have serious doubts on that score. Judging by the look that crossed Sam's face every time he looked at Cas' still form, he was too.

If he'd hated Zachariah before—and, yeah, he pretty much had—he _really_ hated him now. He'd been terrified that the angel was going to use Sam to get to him, given that he didn't seem to care any more about Lucifer's shell than Lucifer's minions had cared about Michael's, and all he'd been able to think was that he'd never be able to handle the bastard torturing his brother in front of him. Never. It hadn't even occurred to him that Zachariah might go after Cas. It was true enough that Uriel had attacked Cas, sure, but Uriel never had seemed very stable. And Raphael was even less so, from what little Dean had seen. Total jackass or not, Zachariah was mostly sane, and Cas was his _brother_. But then Zachariah _had_ gone after him, and Cas had become family just as Bobby and Ellen and Jo had, and listening to him scream….

He shook his head and gave the cap on the energy drink a particularly vicious twist, splashing orange whatever across the bedspread.

"Dean," Sam scolded as he took a seat in front of the computer, but Dean just rolled his eyes and set the bottle on the nightstand so he could haul Cas partially upright. They'd found that leaning him against the headboard was the easiest way to position him when they were trying to get liquid into him into him, although Dean didn't really expect this orange crap to do any more good than anything else they'd tried had. Sam had some theory about Cas' energy levels and something-olytes and who knew what else that he'd been expounding on it before leaving for the town's lone grocery store, but at this point Dean was just humoring him on the grounds that it couldn't possibly do _less_ than anything else they'd done.

He shook his head. Maybe they _should_ go ahead and drive Castiel down to Bobby's. At least the panic room had better defenses than a few salt lines and spray-painted sigils. And the plumbing was way better.

Pour. Give Cas a minute to breathe. Or rest. Or whatever. Pour. Give Cas a minute to breathe. Or rest. Or whatever. Pour. He continued the pattern in silence, the only sound in the room the clicking of the computer keys, and before long the bottle of orange whatever was gone.

He was reaching out to lower Cas back down when something…changed…and he froze, frowning. "Cas?"

"Dean?" Sam asked, turning away from the computer screen.

"I think he just moved. Cas?" He tapped the angel's cheek lightly. He _had_ slapped him once, trying to wake him up, but he'd felt guilty enough about it afterwards when Cas' head had just lolled on impact that he didn't really want to try again without some promise of a better reaction. There was silence for a minute, but when the figure on the bed remained still he began to wonder if his imagination was just getting the better of him. He heard the clicking begin again behind him as Sam apparently came to the same conclusion, and with a shake of his head he once again began to move Cas back into a prone position. He was officially losing it.

Except that something _definitely_ twitched in Cas' throat as motion resumed, and he turned to Sam. "Toss me another one of those drinks, would you?"

* * * * *

"De?"

It took a minute for the sound to register—the damn pipes were creaking again, this time from Sam's shower, and they were drowning out most everything else including the game—and then he turned so fast that he almost fell off the side of the bed. "Cas?"

He caught a flash of blue as Cas' eyelids fluttered again. "'es."

A wave of relief swept through him at that rough confirmation. "Man, I didn't think you were _ever_ going to wake up. We've been pouring energy drinks into you for two _days_." He still wasn't sure that that crap had actually had anything to do with Cas waking up—it had probably just been the right time—but Sam had been convinced. And annoying as hell to live with.

Cas' forehead creased, and then he managed to open his eyes. "Wa' 'a'?"

"You want water?" Dean guessed, moving over to Cas' bed and lifting him into a sitting position against the headboard. It would be the first thing that he'd request after having all those things jammed down his throat.

Cas' eyes opened a bit further, and that was _definitely_ one of his more exasperated looks, but his second croak wasn't any more intelligible than the first.

"Well, water sounds good to me," Dean decided. Cas didn't actively object, which he took as a good sign, and before long the water bottle that had been sitting on the nightstand was empty. "I'll get you more as soon as Sam gets out of the bathroom," Dean promised.

"Wha' 'appen'?" Cas asked, his voice coming out as slightly less of a croak, although his words were slurred and sluggish.

Despite his own…experience…Dean wasn't sure what the procedure was for _telling_ someone they'd been tortured, so he settled for, "What do you remember?"

Cas swallowed a few times, and then, slowly, "I was 'ssisting you with a hunt 'n Col' Oak, South D'kota. You were 'n a barn, an'—" His eyes widened, and his whole body lurched. "Za'ariah!"

Dean winced. "Yeah, Zachariah was there. He, uh, tried to use you to get me to say 'yes.'"

"'ou don't understan'!"

He began to struggle against the blankets—a struggle that he was losing, which, considering that there was currently only a sheet and a pathetically thin comforter over him, was a pretty good indication as to his strength levels—and Dean reached out to pin him against the headboard. "Stop that before you hurt yourself! It's okay; he's gone." Cas didn't seem to hear him, and he tried a light shake. "It's _okay_! _Breathe_. Or whatever it is angels do."

The creak of the plumbing shutting down drowned out whatever Cas said in return, but he didn't release his grip until Cas stopped fighting.

"Dean?" Sam asked, hurrying out of the bathroom. "What's wr—Cas?" A relieved grin crossed his face. "Hey. Welcome back to the land of the living."

"You 'ave to go!" Cas said, his voice stronger with agitation. "Now!"

Sam smile turned to a frown, and the knuckles gripping his towel turned white as he glanced around the motel room. "What's wrong? Go where?"

"_Away_. They c'n find me 'ere! M' wards aren't…. Zachariah will…." He broke off, body convulsing again.

"Hey, no more of that," Dean ordered, pushing him back against the headboard a second time. "If Zachariah coming back is what's got you so worked up, I think you can chill. That's the one thing I'm _not_ worried about right now."

Cas' worried frown didn't waver, nor did his hands unclench, but at least he stopped fighting. "Did 'ou do something?"

"You explain; I'm getting dressed," Sam said with a shake of his head.

Dean turned back to Cas. "_We_ didn't do anything—we tried, I swear we did, but nothing _worked_." He shook his head, remembering again just bouncing away from that bastard, the hole in Zachariah's head closing smoothly without so much as a drop of blood lost. "But it turns out that Gabriel is kind of badass when he's pissed."

* * * * *

_Kudos to everyone who figured it out. Had thought about going with Anna, but she's not as powerful and nowhere near as fun to write.__  
_

_*For anyone who isn't familiar with it, the Hokey Pokey is a very annoying children's dance.  
_


	11. Cas: You are a mess

_Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed._

* * * * *

"Ga'riel 's an archan'el," Castiel pointed out automatically. However little his brother might be _acting_ like one at the moment, preferring, as he seemed to, his Trickster guise, all archangels were, by definition, 'badass.' And then the impact of Dean's words struck him—exhaustion and the echoes of remembered pain were affecting far more than just his speech, they were making it difficult to even _think_ clearly—and a feeling of shock set in. "Ga'riel was _there_?"

"I don't think so to start with, but after Zachariah had you up against that wall…." Dean shook his head and looked away, apparently in some distress. "I don't know exactly what Zachariah was _doing_ to you, but you were screaming and Sam and I couldn't do a damn thing about it. And then the windows blew out, the roof split open, the walls crumbled…it was like you back at that gas station, except about a hundred times worse. When I looked up again, Gabriel was just _there_, standing between you and Zachariah. And the look on his face, _man_." Dean's expression turned almost admiring. "I thought Sam did bitchface well, but that was impressive. Anyway, Gabriel and Zachariah sort of stared at each other for a second, and then Zachariah turned about the same color as those sheets, and…." He shook his head again. "Well, I don't really know what happened after that, to tell you the truth. Zachariah seemed to forget all about Sam and me, so we just grabbed you and ran."

"Which was about the first intelligent thing that any of you had done all day. Do you deliberately go _looking_ for the bright, blinking, 'Hey, it's a trap!' signs, or is it just talent?"

Dean had lurched to his feet at Gabriel's first words, reaching for the gun in his waistband, but after a glare at Gabriel he let his hand fall away. "Dude, do any of you knock?"

Gabriel smirked and then made a beckoning gesture, and something jumped out of Dean's pocket and flew into his hand, followed immediately by a second item from one of the bags. Ferocious banging from the inside of the bathroom door indicated that something was attempting to go to him from that direction as well.

Whatever it was flew out of the bathroom and into his palm the moment Sam, now fully dressed, opened the door. Sam's gaze went first to Dean and Castiel, apparently assuring himself that they were all right, and then he swiveled to glare at Gabriel. "What the _hell?!_"

Gabriel displayed two lighters and a box of matches and smirked again. "Fool me once. I don't want either of you getting any ideas." He put them down on top of the television behind him.

"You—" Dean began, through gritted teeth.

"Hey, I'm being nice enough to share my wards with little bro there; the least you could do is offer me coffee." He took a quick look around the motel room and then wrinkled his nose. "On second thought, _don't_, I'd probably catch something."

"'ou're warding me?" Castiel asked, before either Dean or Sam could respond. He'd been terrified when he'd woken up and remembered that his wards were completely gone, and even now, no matter how he grasped for strength, he found nothing left with which he could replace them. Despite Dean's attempt to calm him, he was well aware that if his siblings found him, they would find the Winchesters with him, and now he _knew_ far Zachariah would go to force Dean to accept Michael. Another angel warding him would explain why he—and they—had yet to be found, but why would Gabriel help him when he'd already made it clear that he _wanted_ Dean to accept Michael? And, for that matter, Sam to accept Lucifer.

"Well, since _you_ haven't got the power to ward a fly at the moment…." Gabriel shrugged. "I sent Zachariah crying back to Michael, but seeing as he's got his flaming sword shoved so far up his ass he's doing a damn good impersonation of a dragon at the moment—"

"Another good reason to be glad I haven't said 'yes'," Dean muttered.

"—one of the others else will probably be sent down in his place. I would _hope_ one with a bit of restraint—"

"And not a total sadist?" Sam suggested.

"Do either of you ever shut up? Go get some food or something."

Castiel tensed as Gabriel flicked his fingers, banishing the Winchesters. "What di' you do with them?"

"Oh, relax. I just sent them to the market."

It was possible that he was lying, Castiel knew—he could be lying about everything, right down to keeping him hidden—but…somehow he just didn't think that was the case. Besides which, even if he _was_, there wasn't a great deal that Castiel could do about it at the moment.

"Anyway, I figured as long as I'd gone to the trouble of keeping Zachariah from turning you into chicken-fried-Castiel," Gabriel continued, "it would be kind of a waste to let someone else drop in and finish the job. So, wards."

"I thought you didn' believe 'n my search for Father?" As long as he kept his speech slow and thought about each word, they didn't seem to get jumbled in his mouth quite so badly, but he still found the sensation annoying.

Gabriel snorted. "I _don't_."

"Then why di' you help me?"

He waved a hand. "Slow day. All those humans up and being nice to each other, who'd have thought?"

Castiel ignored the dismissive tone, keeping his eyes locked on Gabriel's, and after a moment, Gabriel looked away, all signs of amusement disappearing from his face.

"Because he was _torturing_ you, okay? The killing…." He shook his head. "I hate it. _Hate. It_. I can't stand to _see_ it. But at least it's…fast. No matter how quickly I move, by the time I know something's happening, it's already too late to do anything but mourn the loss."

Castiel remembered Uriel, and Anna putting the sword through his throat before he'd been able to do much more than register her presence, and didn't say anything.

"But what Zachariah was doing to you wasn't fast. He wasn't _trying_ to make it fast. I could hear you screaming, and it wasn't _stopping_, and—" He broke off with another, sharper, shake of his head.

"Thank you," Castiel said, when it became obvious that Gabriel didn't plan to say anything else.

Gabriel's expression hardened as he turned back to face Castiel. "You want to thank me, convince those two idiots to give in, say 'yes,' and get this damn thing _over with_, one way or the other."

It was Castiel's turn to look away. He couldn't do that. He _wouldn't_ do that, even if it meant that the wards protecting him would be removed. He would convince the Winchesters to leave him…they would understand, once he explained the danger.

Silence hung between them for several minutes, and then Gabriel heaved a sigh. When he spoke again, his voice was softer, even if it did have a definite edge of exasperation. "Oh, stop worrying; it's not a condition for anything. I didn't actually think you'd listen to reason." He snorted. "And _they_ obviously won't. Stubborn, stupid, pains in the ass."

Castiel wasn't entirely sure if he was included in that description or not, and he flinched back almost instinctively when Gabriel stepped closer and reached out a hand. After what Zachariah had done, a link with _any_ of his siblings would bring only pain; a direct link with an archangel at full strength would be completely unbearable.

"Stop that. Be still."

A palm pressed lightly against the forehead of his shell and Castiel felt tendrils of power reaching towards him. Normally a physical connection was completely unnecessary for communication, but it seemed that Gabriel intended to scan rather than initialize a link. He somehow found enough energy to look beyond his shell—it was frightening to think that he was barely even capable of the angelic equivalent of opening his _eyes_ right now—and saw a latticework of warding around the two of them, apparently what Gabriel was using to hide them from the others.

"You are a mess, aren't you?" Gabriel observed, interrupting his thoughts.

"Yes."

For some reason Gabriel seemed to find that amusing, but before Castiel could inquire, he felt a terrifying surge of power that dwarfed anything that Zachariah would ever be able to control rising around him. "Don't watch," Gabriel cautioned.

He obediently closed his 'eyes' and reduced his vision to that of his shell—he couldn't have kept them open much longer anyway—and then sheer self-preservation forced him to keep still as whatever Gabriel was doing drew closer and closer. He shivered inside his shell, but before the terror manifested physically the pressure suddenly dissipated.

"There."

Wards, Castiel realized when he looked again. Except that these were much tighter than the ones he'd originally seen, and surrounding only him rather than a latticework that enclosed the two of them. While they weren't actually tied to him, he could see connections already in place where he could link if he chose, and he frowned, uncertain. That kind of warding had the promise of something permanent.

"They're yours until you choose to release them," Gabriel confirmed, dropping his arm back to his side. "When you link, they'll start drawing on your energy to maintain themselves, but it shouldn't be much more than you were spending on your own wards. Most of the power requirement comes at creation."

Castiel lost focus on the wards barely seconds later, but…. "Gabriel?"

"I'd like to see Zachariah—or any of Michael's sycophants—breach _those_."

There was more than a hint of anger in his tone, and Castiel didn't question further, but there were _shields_ tied into those wards. The next angel—or possibly even archangel; it was hard to say from the short glimpse he'd managed—who tried to catch him in a power vortex was going to find it reflected right back at them. 'In the teeth' to use Dean's terminology. Oh, the shields were unlikely to hold against Michael or Lucifer, even Gabriel didn't have _that_ kind of power, but then if either of them were in front of him, he would have far more important things to worry about anyway. "Thank you," he repeated.

"Yeah, well, just don't expect me to pop in and save your ass when one of the others _does_ decide to end it quickly. Those won't do a damn thing against a sword." Gabriel shook his head and then reached out again. "You should rest. You're barely keeping that shell intact at the moment; you certainly don't have any business working beyond it."

Castiel intercepted his hand, ignoring the fact that his arm trembled when he raised it off the mattress. "The Winchesters?" He had a more than sneaking suspicion that if he didn't ask, Gabriel would have no compunction about leaving them wherever he'd sent them.

Gabriel heaved an exaggerated sigh, and then all traces of seriousness disappeared as he smirked. "Oh, fine, I suppose I can return your pet humans. Although you'd be much better off with a nice terrier." His grin grew. "I'll even make _them_ terriers, if you like."

Castiel stared at him.

"Hopeless." Gabriel shook his head and snapped his fingers. Sam and Dean reappeared immediately—Dean looking unaccountably slimy—but before Castiel could ask, fingers brushed lightly against his forehead as power once again rose around him, and the world dimmed to black.

* * * * *

_Okay, one note—I know Dean is supposed to be the Michael sword, but I couldn't let the chance for a flaming sword/dragon impression line pass (especially since Gabriel is the one character besides Dean that I can see pulling it off), so I'm assuming Michael has an actual sword somewhere as well._


	12. Sam: Archangel notKansas

_Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed._

* * * * *

"I _hate_ him."

Sam tried not to laugh. He really did. Taken as a whole, the situation wasn't all that humorous, after all. They were God knew where—courtesy of an archangel who'd never shown any reluctance to put them in harms way in the past—neither of them was particularly well-armed, and they were surrounded by nearly a dozen people who'd just watched them appear out of nowhere and didn't seem all that thrilled about it.

But his brother had just been slapped across the face by a giant fish. And there was no way in hell he was going to be able to hold out much longer.

Dean swiveled to glare at him as the first snicker escaped. "Dude, this isn't funny. I've got fish slime in my _mouth_."

That pretty much did it.

"Shut up," Dean growled, trying to brush off some of the slime that the fish had left on his jacket as it had slid down to the floor. After a moment, he gave up in disgust, wiping his hands on his jeans. "Where are we, anyway?"

Sam choked off his laughter. At least temporarily. "A fish market."

Dean groaned again and then scrubbed at his face. "Archangel or not, I am _so_ going to kick that guy's ass."

"Yeah, because that's gone so well in the past." He waved at the men, all Asian, staring at him. They'd been unloading what appeared to be buckets of live fish into tanks by means of tossing them from one to the other—hence Dean getting hit with one mid-toss—but none of them had moved a muscle since his and Dean's arrival. "Uh, sorry about that. We'll just be…going…now." One of them muttered something to the man beside him in a language that definitely wasn't English, gripping a meat hook in a way that Sam didn't find at all reassuring, and he reached for his gun as unobtrusively as he could.

Although the men continued to stare at them warily, they made no move to stop him and Dean as they edged backwards out of the group, and after a minute Sam let his hand fall back to his side. Crisis number one averted.

"We aren't in Kansas—or at least North Dakota—any more, are we?" Dean muttered as soon as they were out of sight of the group. It was as much a statement as a question, but Sam answered anyway.

"Doesn't look like it." Or sound like it; there were muted conversations going on at all the stalls around them, but none of them seemed to be in English. He took another look around, checking out the few posted signs. East Asian, definitely, but whether it was Chinese, Japanese, or something else, he had absolutely no idea. Bobby would probably know, though.

Dean seemed to have the same idea, pulling his phone out quickly, but after a glance at the screen he gave a disgusted sigh and shoved it back into his pocket. "No signal."

"Figures. Let's see if we can find the exit; there's more likely to be something in English out on the street." And maybe directions. He wasn't quite sure where they'd _go_ just yet, but anywhere had to be better than a fish market.

"Do you think we're in real not-Kansas?" Dean asked. "I mean, as opposed to Trickster—or archangel—not-Kansas? Because if this is archangel not-Kansas, who knows what's waiting for us out there." Before Sam could respond, Dean tensed. "Hey, you don't think Gabriel was planning to…_do_…anything to Cas, do you? I mean, that he wanted us out of the way for?"

Sam frowned. "I doubt it. I mean, what would be the point of saving him from Zachariah if he was just going to off him himself? Besides, even if we were there to stop him, what would we _do_?" They had considered about spreading holy oil around the motel room in case of a visit from Zachariah, but only for about two minutes. The only way to really use it would have been to make a circle around Cas, effectively trapping him, and neither of them had thought that that was a good idea. Then again, if Gabriel was going to be putting in unexpected visits—even if he claimed to be helping—maybe they should reconsider.

"We're talking about the guy who came up with death by _Golden Retriever_," Dean pointed out, still looking worried. "I don't think we should expect much in the way of rational thinking."

Sam crossed his arms over his chest, frowning. Dean had a point. Despite the fact that there was no real _reason_ for Gabriel to send them away if he wanted to hurt Cas, the guy had been playing a Trickster for who knew how long. Who knew why he did anything he did? He glanced over at Dean and shrugged slightly. "Let's just get out of here and back there and you can ask him yourself, all right?" Assuming, of course, that they weren't _already_ back there and just stuck in some kind of weird hallucination…he was really starting to hate angels.

"Yeah." Dean took a couple more steps forward and then stopped, glaring up at the ceiling. "Hey, jackass! If you can hear me, you leave him _alone_, got it?"

"Dean," Sam hissed, grabbing his arm and tugging him along. Not that he didn't understand the warning—and sympathize—but they already stood out here way more than he liked. There was no reason to draw _more_ attention to themselves. "Let's just get out of here, all right?"

"Yeah," Dean agreed, after one last glare at the ceiling. He took a quick look around and then pointed down one of the aisles apparently at random. "That way."

It took several 'that way's before they finally got out of the warehouse, in the process wandering past tanks of fish, tanks of shrimp, tanks of lobsters, and tanks of things that Sam didn't have the first idea how to identify. The building was huge, and apparently right on the waterfront. Of course, there was still no way to tell _which_ waterfront. Sam really hoped that this was real not-Kansas…at least then, if worst came to worst, they could just catch a flight back.

As they continued to walk, he noticed that Dean had returned to alternately grimacing and scrubbing at his face with the not-entirely-clean sleeve of his jacket, and Sam couldn't hold back a slight grin. A giant, flopping fish, right in the _face_.

"Payback's a bitch, Sammy," Dean muttered.

They finally did find the street, and Sam frowned. There were a few signs in English, but nothing that told him where— "Ah, _shit_."

"What?"

The world tilted suddenly, and Sam once again found himself staring at the dingy wallpaper of their motel room.

"Oh, come on," a voice that was becoming irritatingly familiar voice said. "I sent you to get lunch and you can't even manage that much?"

Sam whipped around to glare at him. "You sent us to _Japan!_"

Gabriel smirked. "So? I felt like sashimi."

"What the hell is your problem?" Dean demanded.

"Right now? I'm hungry. Oh, yeah, and for some reason the two of you are still refusing to get your heads out of your asses and accept your destiny. That's a little annoying too."

"Cas?" Dean asked sharply, still keeping his glare locked on Gabriel. Who didn't appear to be affected in the least.

There was no response, and Sam twisted to look at the still figure on the bed. He didn't look any worse for wear, but then he didn't look any better either. "What did you do to him?" he asked. Even if they hadn't made any plans to use their remaining holy oil, they _had_ brought the container into the motel room with them, just in case. He couldn't reach it from here, but Dean probably could, at least if Sam could distract Gabriel for a few minutes. Maybe dumping it on his head would be enough like a cir—

"He's _asleep_," Gabriel said with a roll of his eyes. "And don't wake him up; he's hurt, and he needs the rest. Maintaining these bodies of yours takes work, you know."

Sam frowned. "Since when do angels sleep? Are you sure he's not unconscious again?" Not that angels were normally unconscious, either, but….

"Can't you fix him?" Dean asked at the same time. "Heal him, or whatever?"

If anything, Gabriel's expression became even more exasperated. "Neither of you have a _clue_ what Zachariah did to him, do you?"

"Assume we don't," Sam cut in. Judging by the expression on Dean's face he was about to start swinging, and Sam kind of doubted that that would go over very well. Although if it provided enough distraction for _him_ to get to the holy oil…. No. More likely, Gabriel would just turn Dean into a rabbit or banish him to Timbuktu or something before Sam had time to take a single step.

Gabriel heaved an exaggerated sigh, and then, "Think of it as the angelic equivalent of having acid poured through your veins. Right now, his power channels are so raw that even if I _wanted_ to give him enough power to heal himself, I couldn't do it. At least not without causing him even more pain than Zachariah did. And I can't heal him myself without risking further damage to those same power channels." He looked away for a fraction of a second. "Archangels weren't really designed to be gentle. What I _can_ do—what I _am_ doing—is expanding my wards enough to hide him from the others and give him time to heal on his own. Which is going to involve a lot of rest, including letting that shell sleep."

"Yeah, and how long is healing going to take?" Dean challenged. "And how do we know you're not just going to up and disappear on him halfway through?"

Gabriel hesitated for a second. "I don't know." And then any sign of uncertainty was replaced by a smirk in a mood swing so absurdly swift that it couldn't be healthy, even for an archangel. "And _you_ don't know. See you around, boys." He cocked his head slightly. "Probably."

And then he was gone. Sam could almost hear Dean's teeth grinding. "One archangel, extra crispy."


	13. Dean: And Sam a little less stubborn

_Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed. I'm especially glad that all three of the main characters (and Gabriel) are staying in character…it was one of the things I was worried about with three POVs to work with._

* * * * *

The pipes squealed overhead, and Dean rolled his eyes and turned up the volume on the television set before checking Cas. Nope, the noise hadn't received any more of a reaction than shaking him had earlier.

"We've got a problem," Sam said suddenly.

"You mean, aside from the fact that this motel room is crap and Cas hasn't regained consciousness since his psychopath of a brother dropped in for a visit?" Granted that it hadn't even been a full twelve hours yet, but Gabriel shifted personalities so often he was practically a walking mental institution, and at least a couple of those personalities didn't seem to care too much about the health of his siblings. Who knew what he'd really hit Cas with?

"Yeah, aside from that." Sam unplugged the laptop and handed it over. "Check it out."

Dean scanned the web page. "_Deputy_ found skinned? You've got to be kidding me." He handed the computer back. "I mean, does Zachariah really think we're going to fall for that again? How dumb does he think we _are_?" He paused. "Never mind, don't answer that."

Sam put the computer back on the desk, rocking the chair back on its back legs as he stretched, and Dean wondered idly how far he'd sprawl if—or, rather, _when_, given the state of the motel room—the thing finally broke. "I'm not so sure it's Zachariah."

"What do you mean, you're not sure? Of course it's him." Apparently Gabriel hadn't scared the bastard as much as he thought he had. Which didn't give him a lot of confidence in the other things that Gabriel had told them; not that he'd had much to start with. He nudged Cas' shoulder again, still to no effect.

"Do you remember what Zachariah said?"

"Before or after the torture started?" He couldn't believe that Sam was even considering that something else might be happening there.

It was Sam's turn to roll his eyes. "He said that when he _noticed_ something supernatural happening there, he knew we'd show up eventually. Ergo, something supernatural was already there. Maybe whatever killed those hikers. And now the deputy."

"Or maybe he was lying through his teeth, and he's trying to set us up again. It's not as if he's got a long history of upfront behavior. Or, you know, _any_ history of it." Dean shook his head. "I can't believe you want to go back there. Are you insane?"

"I just think we should check it out." He paused for a minute and then shrugged slightly. "I mean, I don't know about you, but I'm going kind of stir crazy in this motel room."

Dean couldn't exactly deny that he was starting to feel the same way. Still, assuming Gabriel had told the truth about keeping Cas hidden from the other angels—kind of a big assumption, but no one else had dropped in unexpectedly so it _might_ be true—Dean didn't want to risk moving him out of whatever area that protective zone covered. Even if it did condemn them to this damn motel room for even longer. He probably should have asked Gabriel how far it was safe to move Cas, but he'd had other things on his mind at the time. Like not taking a swing at the jackass.

He snorted. And anyway, no matter _how_ bored he might be or how much this place might be getting on his nerves, he didn't see walking into yet another trap as a good way to change things up. He glared at his brother. "Why can't you just go find a bar or a girl or something like a normal person?"

"Look, you stay here with him, and I'll go see if it's anything," Sam said. "I won't go into Cold Oak," he added quickly, "but I'll at least hit the coroner's office and check out the body. We never got a chance to do that last time." He checked his watch. "It'll be past ten by the time I get back there, and you know that nothing in that town stays open very late."

Dean still thought that it was a dumb idea, but Sam seemed pretty set on going, so he settled for shaking his head. "Just keep an eye out for the sheriff. We did kind of disappear without saying anything, and I don't think getting caught breaking and entering is going to help our case. And take some spray paint—you might need to anti-angel a few of the buildings." He'd suggest taking some holy oil as well, but there wouldn't be an easy way for Sam to use it, and anyway, he wanted to keep it on hand in case Gabriel was lying and Cas had another couple siblings getting ready to put in an appearance.

Sam nodded, grabbing the keys to the Impala off the nightstand and turning for the door. "I'll call you if I find anything."

"Yeah, you do that."

* * * * *

"I believe that Gabriel will maintain the wards until I am able to provide enough energy to sustain them on my own," Cas said, in between sips from the glass of water Dean offered.

Fortunately for Dean's nerves, Cas had awakened less than an hour after Sam had left, just as the basketball game finished. He had _seemed_ all right when Dean had checked him over—he was far more alert than he had been the last time he'd been conscious, and his speech was no longer slurred—but given that he was now insisting that they could trust Gabriel, Dean suspected that he'd suffered some sort of angelic head injury somewhere along the line.

Apparently Cas read his disbelief in his face, because he frowned slightly and repeated more emphatically, "Gabriel will maintain the wards."

"So maybe this is all just a plot to keep us trapped here in Motel Hell," Dean suggested. "I mean, if the wards are here, I guess we have to be." As far as a trick to pull on someone, it was pretty pathetic, but he had a hard time believing that anyone who'd put he and Sam—_especially_ Sam—through the hell that Gabriel had was capable of doing anything out of the goodness of his heart.

Cas' frown deepened, and he shook his head slightly. "The wards are tied to me rather than to a physical location. It would be perfectly safe to travel."

"Now you tell me." They could be halfway to Bobby's by now.

"It is difficult to communicate while unconscious."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Sarcasm, Cas. Anyway, I trust Gabriel about as half as far as I could throw him, so—"

"You should _not_ attempt to do that." Cas interrupted, his voice surprisingly firm for someone who was propped up against a headboard with a pillow on either side of him.

"I wasn't really planning to," Dean began, and then thought better of it. Given the opportunity, he probably _would_ pitch Gabriel out a window, just on principle. He shook his head. "Never mind, that's not really the point. What I mean is, what makes you so sure he'll keep his word? I mean, even if the wards are still intact now—and I don't know if I'd care to bet on that—what if he changes his mind?" There had to be some kind of twisted 'lesson' involved here, somewhere.

Cas shifted slightly. "I know the wards are still in place; I can see them. And as to why I believe that he will maintain them…." He trailed off for a moment before shaking his head and continuing. "Gabriel did not…agree…with what Zachariah did. With what he was attempting to do. I do not believe that he will allow any of the others to attempt the same thing, especially now while I am unable to defend myself."

"So, what? All of a sudden he's supposed to be on our side?" That seemed pretty damn unlikely, considering their history.

"No," Cas said immediately. "He still believes that the only way for this to end is for you and Sam to agree to become vessels and for Michael and Lucifer and for one of them to kill the other. If Zachariah had just killed me outright, I do not think that he would have interfered." He cocked his head slightly. "In fact he said as much when we were speaking—that I should not expect his help in the future should one of the others simply come to destroy me."

"But he wouldn't let him torture you." Not that Dean could exactly blame him for that—he'd _hated_ hearing Cas scream and not being able to do a damn thing to stop it—but being against torture but okay with killing seemed _just_ a little messed up. Then again, considering what he'd seen of Cas' family thus far, 'a little messed up' was actually a pretty big improvement. But did it have to be _Gabriel_?

Castiel nodded in agreement.

Dean knocked his foot against the leg of the bed lightly. "Well, I'd still like to kick his ass."

"You should not attempt that either." Cas looked around the motel room. "Where is Sam? And why do I smell fish?"

Dean groaned. "Ask your brother." His jacket was never going to be the same again. "As for _my_ brother, apparently someone else was found skinned—or at least reported skinned—and he thought someone should go check it out. I mean, you'd think Zachariah would be a _little_ more creative." And Sam a little less stubborn, but that pretty much went without saying.

Cas frowned and shook his head. "It is unlikely to be Zachariah."

"What do you mean?"

"Gabriel was displeased with his behavior." He looked away for a long moment, staring out at the nearly black sky. "An archangel's wrath is not an…easy…thing to bear."

Coming from a guy who'd been blown to pieces by one. Dean didn't say anything and after a minute or two Cas continued.

"Even if Michael _ordered_ Zachariah back down to Earth, which I admit is certainly possible, I would expect him to do his best to avoid you—or at least myself, which at the moment amounts to the same thing—for some time to come."

That was something, anyway, Dean supposed. "So maybe it's someone else. Who would be your next most sadistic sibling?" That earned him one of Cas' more exasperated looks, and he grinned. "What? It's a fair question." There was silence for a minute. "So if it's not some angel setting out bait, what do you think could be killing people?"

Cas lifted his shoulders slightly. "I have no more information than you do."

Dean frowned and then pulled his phone out of his pocket. "Maybe I'd better give Sam a call." He hit speed dial and put the phone to his ear, but rather than the ringing he expected…. "What the hell?" He lowered the phone, frowning at it.

"Is something wrong?"

"It went straight to voicemail." Of course, there were a dozen—or at least two or three—perfectly plausible explanations for that that didn't involve supernatural creatures or angels being dicks. The most likely of those was that Sam had shut it off temporarily while sneaking into the coroner's office, although why he wouldn't have just switched it to vibrate Dean didn't know. Or maybe he was in the middle of another call or sitting in jail after being picked up by the sheriff. He flipped his phone shut and glared at it. "Damn it."


	14. Cas: Fine, I'll borrow a car

_Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed._

* * * * *

Dean shook his head and snapped his phone shut. For the fourth time in approximately half an hour. "Damn it, I'm going to kill him. He _knows _better than to turn his phone off."

Castiel was well aware that Dean would never actually kill Sam, so he remained silent as Dean continued to mutter. He wasn't entirely certain what Dean was so angry _about_…the few non-blasphemous phrases seemed concentrated upon recklessness and stupidity, neither of which was a quality that he would normally associate with Sam. Well, perhaps recklessness was somewhat apt, but he was certainly not without intellectual ability.

Dean glared at his phone again and then turned to look at Castiel. "You're absolutely _sure_ about Gabriel keeping you warded?"

"Yes." As he'd told Dean already, multiple times, although judging by his expression, Dean still didn't entirely believe him.

Dean glanced between him and the door for a minute, and then, "Will you be all right here for awhile? I mean, if I go looking for Sam?"

"I will be fine." He would not care to attempt to stand—or, in fact, do anything physical with his shell—but he was certainly capable of remaining still in the motel room bed. And if danger did come, he would manage. He was still an angel of the Lord, however much the others might disagree with that assessment. "How will you get there?" In the midst of Dean's mutterings, he was almost certain that there had been a reference to Sam with the car. Or at least threats directed at Sam if he let anything happen to the car.

"Steal a car," Dean said with a shrug. He held up his hands quickly, before Castiel could do more than open his mouth to object. "Fine, I'll _borrow_ a car. I'll even fill the gas tank before I return it, okay? Do you have your—damn it," he broke off with a grimace. "We haven't got around to getting you a new phone, have we? Never mind. Use the motel phone if you need to reach me; there are instructions for non-local calls. Just charge it to the room."

Castiel nodded and let Dean help him lie back down.

"You've got water," Dean indicted a bottle on the table, "a couple granola bars if you get hungry…."

"I will be fine," he repeated. "You should go find Sam."

Dean nodded. "All right. See you…it might be tomorrow sometime, depending what's out there," Dean said as he turned for the door, pausing halfway to pull several weapons out of one of the bags. "Call if anything happens. And if we _aren't_ back tomorrow, or if one of us hasn't at least contacted you by then, call Bobby. You know his number, right?"

"Yes."

"Good." Dean shook his head, grabbing his jacket, and then he wrinkled his nose and grimaced. "I swear I'm going to kill him."

Castiel wasn't sure whether he was referring to Sam or Gabriel in this instance, and after a moment he decided that it really didn't matter. Dean would not kill Sam, and he could not kill Gabriel. He considered following Dean—spectrally, of course, it required far less effort than a physical move—but as he would be unable to help with anything that Dean might encounter, it would serve little to no purpose. And he was still very tired.

* * * * *

It was still dark when he regained consciousness. He found it extremely…disconcerting…to go from suddenly unaware to aware, with no knowledge as to what had transpired since the last time he had been conscious. Despite the fact that humans generally slept nightly—and seemed to enjoy it, judging by how annoyed Dean got when Castiel interrupted him—he would be just as glad when he was able to do without it again. A quick look around the motel room confirmed that Dean and Sam had not yet returned, but Dean said that they probably wouldn't be back until tomorrow so he wasn't particularly worried.

Since he had some time of enforced idleness—he believed that he would be able to get his shell out of the motel room if it were necessary, but unless the situation altered greatly it would be best if he kept it as still as possible—he turned his attention to Gabriel's ward-and-shield construction. It was fully as elaborate as he'd expected, obviously the product of a great deal of experimentation, and while he suspected that the wards would keep him hidden unless and until one of his siblings was directly in front of him, it was the shields that held most of his attention. He had no real desire to find himself under the sort of duress that would truly test them, but he had to admit that would be an…interesting…exercise.

He touched them lightly but didn't dare to try linking to the open connections just yet. He didn't yet have the necessary strength to maintain them, and his channels were still _very_ raw. And, as he'd expected when he'd spoken about them to Dean, there were tendrils of power still connected from elsewhere that were providing more than sufficient power without any input from himself. He nudged one of the tendrils experimentally, and then grunted as something heavy landed on his chest. "Gabriel?" He frowned. "Why are you sitting on me?"

Gabriel patted his head absently. "So naïve." He surveyed the room for a long moment. "I wouldn't put it past those two to have this whole _place_ soaked in holy oil by now."

Castiel suspected that Gabriel would never quite get over the two of them trapping him in that circle of holy fire, even if they had released him in a relatively short amount of time. "I don't believe that there is any holy oil, and I find this uncomfortable."

Gabriel seemed to consider for a minute. "Fine, but if I go up like a crispy critter, you're coming with me."

Castiel wasn't sure precisely what a 'crispy critter' was, but he couldn't help but be relieved when Gabriel shifted to sit beside him rather than on him. "You believe that sitting on me would prevent them from trapping you?"

Gabriel shrugged. "Well, I was pretty sure they wouldn't risk frying _you_, anyway."

"They are not here. And, as I said, I do not believe that there is any holy oil." He hoped not, at least…even in the name of protection, he did not want to find himself trapped.

"Yeah, well, _good_." Gabriel rolled his shoulders and then stretched his legs out on the bed, reclining against the headboard. "You know, sometimes I think they just don't like me."

"Most of the time they don't like you," Castiel corrected. "Why does Dean's jacket smell like fish?"

Gabriel laughed. "Apparently he's never learned to duck. Which is hardly _my_ fault."

Somehow Castiel doubted that Dean would agree with that assessment, but he didn't bother to voice his opinion as Gabriel rested a hand on his forehead.

Gabriel remained silent for a minute. "Well, you're looking a _little_ better, at le—" His words were cut off by a loud squeal from overhead. "What in—is that the _pipes_?" The squealing ceased abruptly as he snapped his fingers, and then he sighed. "You know, it's a sad day when I lower myself to do plumbing."

Castiel could hardly disagree, and he was a little surprised when Gabriel continued.

"Although, as long as I'm doing repairs, do you prefer blue or green?" He didn't wait for a response. "I like blue." Another snap of his fingers, and the entire room shifted.

A quick check told Castiel that he hadn't been physically moved any great distance, but he was now seated upright on a bed that was considerably larger and softer than his previous one. The blankets covering him had deepened from a rather unpleasant off-white in a thin, scratchy fabric to a dark blue in a material that was thick and warm. And from a quick glance around, he saw that the television had flattened out and taken up residence on the wall—in fact, it took _up_ most of the wall—the short couch had lengthened and become clean, there was now some semblance of a kitchen….

"Better," Gabriel said with a nod. "Although, I think we're still missing one thing. Or two, as the case may be."

He snapped his fingers again, and Castiel frowned as a simulacrum of a human woman—one bearing a striking resemblance to the women on the cover of the magazines Dean seemed to enjoy, up to and including the rather unrealistically large breasts—appeared beside him holding fruit.

Castiel turned his attention to Gabriel as Gabriel accepted some sort of sugared confection from a second simulacrum seated on his lap. "_Much_ better," Gabriel murmured around the mouthful.

Castiel shook his head, his frown deepening as the first simulacrum tried to push the fruit into his mouth. "I am not hungry."

Gabriel groaned, and the two simulacrum abruptly vanished. Although the plate of sugared things remained. "_How_ long have you been around those two?" He shook his head. "Never mind. Just…tell them to get with the corrupting, already. Sam's wound a little tight, but Dean ought to be good for that." He popped another item from the plate into his mouth, and then he seemed to forget all about the subject as he glanced around the room. "So where are the idiots, anyway? Didn't expect that they'd leave you here all alone."

"They are not idiots."

"Stubborn pains in the ass, then."

That description Castiel couldn't disagree with, and he shrugged slightly. "Another body was discovered near Cold Oak. Dean thought that it was Zachariah again, but Sam wanted to examine the body. He didn't answer his phone when Dean tried to call him, so Dean went looking for him."

"It wasn't Zachariah," Gabriel said flatly.

"I never thought that it was." Silence fell, and Castiel couldn't help but wonder why Gabriel was _here_. He could understand Gabriel's reasoning in saving him from Zachariah…even now, if he heard one of his siblings screaming in pain, he was not entirely certain that he would be able to refrain from trying to render assistance. And the wards Gabriel had provided were a part of that, in a way. A surprising, albeit welcome part, but now that they were in place there was no need for Gabriel to visit him.

There was certainly no need for him to improve the surroundings or attempt to provide food, however unnecessary said food was or how bizarre the manner in which it had been delivered had been. But Gabriel _was_ here, and he had done those things, and…. Castiel shook his head slightly. Gabriel was not a human whose mind could be scanned, and he wasn't at all certain that he had the right to ask. Nor was there any guarantee that Gabriel would answer. Or, if he did so, that it would be with any seriousness.

Now that he thought about it, Gabriel's visit probably qualified as an 'anything' he was supposed to notify Dean about, but there was nothing that the Winchesters could do—nor anything that he particularly _wanted_ them to do—so he made no attempt to reach for the phone and just remained sitting silently beside his brother.

"It can't work, you know?" Gabriel said, after some time had passed. "Not for long, at least."

"What?"

"Being friends with them. Not just the Winchesters, but humans in general…it just can't work. If nothing else, they're going to die. Leave you behind." He snorted. "The Winchesters will probably go that route sooner than most. And then you'll be alone."

His tone was quiet, different from anything that Castiel had yet heard from him, but after a moment, Castiel shrugged slightly. "If I cannot find Father, we're going to attempt to kill Lucifer. We will all very likely die."

Gabriel's face darkened slightly at Castiel's declaration, but as he opened his mouth to speak, they heard the key turn in the motel room lock.


	15. Sam: I think she's dead

_Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed. Slightly longer chapter than usual to make up for the cliffies (although I have no plans to stop writing them in the future)._

* * * * *

Well, that was definitely a dead body, Sam decided, as he peeled back the plastic. Peeled, because the skinned body had apparently still been…squishy…in places when it had been last covered, and where that blood had dried the plastic had stuck to the remains. He shook his head, doing a quick survey with the flashlight. "Nasty."

He stepped away from the corpse and made sure the heavy drapes were completely shut before turning on the light closest to the body. "_Really_ nasty." And he couldn't think of anything but a ritual, albeit one that he wasn't familiar with, that would involve skinning a person. It sure as hell hadn't been done to keep the bodies from being identified; no fingerprints or face might make it a _little_ harder, but the teeth—definitely human, not changeling—were all intact, which would make matching dental records easy enough, and it wasn't like there was a lack of blood for DNA.

Except…. He frowned and poked at the head lightly with a pair of forceps. This guy's neck had been broken. That was about as ritualistic as those peace signs painted on that rock back along the trail had been.

He re-covered the body and took a quick look around the room, but the other five bodies seemed to be gone. Probably returned to their families by now. He couldn't help a grimace. Returned to their families and _buried_…it was going to be a pain in the ass if they had to go dig up all those remains. Of course, that assumed that they'd been identified, otherwise they were probably buried as John and Jane Does somewhere around here. Which…well, it would still be a pain in the ass, but not quite as bad as having to trek all over would be. With a shake of his head, he wiped his hands and took a seat in front of the ancient computer in the far corner of the room.

"Password, password…ah." He took a quick look around and then started typing. As far as secure passwords, using one's daughter's name really _wasn't_—especially when there was a framed family picture complete with nameplate on the wall beside the desk—but he would take what he could get.

At least the file system was simple enough to figure out. The autopsy on the deputy didn't yield any real surprises…the skinning appeared to have occurred pre-mortem, for the most part, but it was undetermined whether shock and blood loss or the broken neck had actually killed the guy.

He drummed his fingers on the desk lightly. "So was the break an accident?" The skinning made more sense in terms of ritual, and if the neck had been broken moving the body _afterward_, that could explain it. Or maybe as he fought to get away, that was possible too. He closed the file and opened the first of what had to be the five unknowns, hoping that they'd provide a little more detail.

No longer unknown, it appeared…this was Mr. Clarence Michaels, as identified by his dental records. Sam skimmed through the file, but it didn't seem to have much more information than the deputy had. Well, except that the broken neck had definitely been _pre_-mortem in this case, which was something, Sam supposed. Well, for the dead guy anyway—it didn't give _him_ any more clues, but at least it was a cleaner way to go.

He shut that file and opened then next. Or he thought he did. He frowned as Mr. Clarence Michaels' information popped up again. "What the…?" He checked the filename, and it was definitely dated as the second autopsy report from that date, but…. "Oh. Idiot." He shut the second, which he'd apparently opened first by mistake, and made sure to click on the first one this time. And Mr. Michaels' information reappeared again.

"What the hell?" This time he left it open as he opened the second file. And the third. And then the fourth and fifth. "What the _hell_?"

There was no way the coroner would have autopsied the same body five times. It just didn't make sense. But there were five different autopsy records, all for Mr. Michaels. And from the images…. There wasn't much to look at, but it did seem like there were multiple bodies in the background in several of the pictures, and each body in focus was in a slightly different position. So why were all the written reports for the same man? A serious copy-paste error?

Or maybe the coroner was _involved_, and somehow those other victims pointed back to him. This was the kind of small town where newcomers were the ones who automatically fell under suspicion when anything went wrong. The people who'd been here their whole lives were simply…overlooked. Maybe the coroner assumed that nobody would look too closely as long as he could point at five autopsy reports. Sam snorted. Maybe the guy was right.

He scanned through the files again and found no information about where any of the bodies were now, but he sent all of them—the five identical ones as well as the one on the deputy—to the printer. He'd read them through in more detail later.

It would help if he had a copy of the crime scene reports as well…without the other four bodies it wouldn't be much to go on, but at least they'd have some idea of estimated height and weight for the other four victims. Hopefully Mr. Michaels' relatives would have an idea of who he might have been with. He frowned. Unless, of course, they'd _been_ Mr. Michaels' relatives.

He dropped the stack of papers back off at the Impala and then moved down the street, keeping to the shadows. Unfortunately, unlike the coroner's office, the police station wasn't standing empty. A quick glance through the windows showed only two officers sitting at a desk, though, so…. He looked around. "Pay phone, pay phone, where is the pay ph—ah." It was inside the grocery store, but that was about as well secured as the coroner's office had been.

He took a moment to get his breathing up to an appropriately fast level, and then dialed quickly.

"911, what's your emergency."

"I think she's dead! There's a man with a gun and a knife and I think he stabbed her and he shot—"

"Sir, where are you?" the woman asked, her voice professionally calm. "This is the county dispatcher; I need to contact the local authorities so they can send help."

"Dover, North Dakota. Out by the Cold Oak trailhead. We were just walking, and he was there, and—_help_!" He dropped the phone with a satisfying clatter and then disconnected quickly. And, shortly afterward, two men ran out of the police station and climbed into a police car, pulling out with a squeal of tires and flashing lights. He grinned, stepping back out onto the street and shutting the grocery store door behind him.

Of course, there might be someone else in the station that he hadn't seen, and he moved as quietly as he could when he slipped inside. If he was very lucky, a computer would have been left on in the officers' haste….

It wasn't hard to find the reports that he wanted; there just wasn't a lot of crime in a town this small. It would have been smarter to drop the information onto a USB stick than take the risk of making noise printing it, but he hadn't thought to bring one, so he would have to make do. He sent them to the printer and then stepped back behind a door in case anyone came to check. Hopefully, if anyone was here, they would just assume that one of the officers had started the job before he'd left.

Ten minutes later, and he was walking back down the street towards the Impala, a short stack of papers in his hand. The streetlights didn't give off enough light to make out a lot of details in the grainy crime-scene photos, but that sure as hell looked like—

Something grabbed his arm, and he automatically threw it off, dropping the papers to the ground, and falling into a defensive stance.

"Where the hell have you been?!"

"_Dean_?" Sam glared at his brother and willed his heart to slow back down. "Are you _trying_ to scare the hell out of me?"

"Me? You're the idiot who turned your phone off! What were you _thinking_?"

Sam frowned, kneeling to collect the papers. "I never turned my phone off." Of course, he hadn't charged it lately either—there hadn't been a lot of need with both of them cooped up in that motel room—and he reached into his pocket to check. It was entirely possible that the battery was dead. Except…. "Huh."

"What?"

Sam handed over the stack of papers and then checked his jacket a second time. "My phone's gone."

"What? Where is it?" Dean looked down at the papers, squinting in the bad light. "What are these?"

"Police reports." He checked the pockets of his jeans, just in case, but they were empty. "And I don't _know_ where my phone is." He tried to remember when he'd seen it last. "When Bobby called back, he called on your phone. I don't think I ever used it at the motel."

"Did it fall out in the Impala?"

"Maybe." Although he usually kept it tucked securely in his jacket, so that was pretty unlikely. He frowned, thinking back. "Oh,_ shit_."

"What?"

"I tried to take a picture of that guy we were chasing back in Cold Oak. I was holding the phone when Zachariah grabbed us…I bet I dropped it." His attention had been on hanging on to his weapon, not his phone so it probably_ was_ back there lying in the dirt somewhere.

"Shit," Dean echoed.

"We're going to have to go back for it."

"What? _Why?_ We'll just get you a new one."

"I took quite a few pictures of that boulder—you know, the one covered with the blood dust and those weird symbols—and it has my fingerprints on it. Not to mention your number—hell, _all_ your numbers, Bobby's number…. The cops might not find it, but then again they might, and call me crazy, but I'd just as soon _stay_ dead to law enforcement." And that 911 call he'd just made wouldn't help matters; he did _not_ need them finding that phone and deciding that _he_ was the psycho who'd attacked those imaginary people.

Dean made a face but didn't disagree. "Well, Cas thinks you're right about one thing, at least—that it wasn't Zachariah that killed that deputy."

Sam nodded, taking the stack of papers back. "Let's get going then. Car's this way. Wait…where is Cas?"

"Back at the motel. He said he'd be fine."

Dean didn't look entirely convinced on that point, but Sam was willing to take Cas' word. Especially since they'd pass Cold Oak on the way back to the motel anyway.

"Gimme the keys," Dean ordered as they approached the Impala.

"What?"

"Car keys." He held out his hand. "Give."

"Why? How did you get here, anyway?" There was no way he'd walked, and 'fine' or not, Cas had been in no shape to teleport him.

Dean made a face. "A granny car. Parked about a block that way." He waved a hand further down the road in the direction that they were walking and then pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and tossed them to Sam. "I told Cas we'd bring it back, which means we can't leave it here, but that doesn't mean that _I'm_ driving it."

Sam rolled his eyes but handed over the keys to the Impala anyway. It was easier than fighting about it.

"And make sure you fill up the gas tank on the way out of town," Dean yelled after him.

* * * * *

Sam was still cursing stupid matchbox-sized cars with stupid seats that didn't slide back anywhere _near_ far enough—and stupid brothers that didn't have the sense to steal anything better if they were going to steal a car—when he brought it to a stop behind the Impala. Cold Oak at night actually looked better than it did during the day…it was harder to see just how dilapidated all the buildings were. Which still didn't make him feel any better about being here. At least it wasn't raining.

Dean tossed him the sawed-off as he unfolded himself, literally, from that damn car. "If you dropped it when Zachariah grabbed us, it's got to be back by the barn."

Sam shouldered the shotgun as he checked the rest of his weaponry and then nodded, flipping on his flashlight as Dean did the same.

"So did you find any clues in all that paperwork about what's really doing this?"

"Nothing definite, but it looks like the coroner might be involved." Dean was scanning forward and to the left as they walked, so Sam kept his eyes right with the occasional glance backward.

"What do you mean?"

"It looks like he autopsied the same body five times after the first killing, or at least copied the same report five times."

"Why? I mean, what does that get him?"

"No clue. Ah, damn." There was crime scene tape around the barn—or at least the remains of the barn walls; there was even less of the thing standing now than there had been when he and Dean had dragged Cas out of here—and when he ducked under it and did a sweep of the area with his flashlight, he could make out police markers that indicated that things had been taken away. At a guess, shotgun shells, although it could just as easily have been pieces of the roof or charred wood or who-knew-what else. He tried to remember whether he'd been wearing gloves when he'd loaded the things with salt or not, but he wasn't sure. Well, too late now, either way.

"Check it out," Dean said.

"What?"

Dean shined his flashlight on the remnants of one wall, slightly more intact than the others, where, minus a few charred chunks, the silhouette of an angel was burned into the wood. Complete with wings arching up from the shoulder blades, although the wall had crumbled before the wings ended.

"Whoa. What do you think the police thought of that?"

Dean shook his head. "I don't know. Blame it on those meddling kids?"

Sam shook his head and turned away, ducking back under the crime scene taped. If he _had _dropped his phone here, it had probably been back outside when Zachariah had first grabbed them. It didn't look like the police had spent much time outside, at least, which made sense considering that the mess was inside. And it was good news for him. He moved away from the building, trying to estimate where he and Dean had been standing. It was hard to tell in the dark, especially since they'd been running, but hopefully…. "_Yes_." There was a glint of shiny black in the light from the flashlight, and he stooped to pick up his phone. It was off, but it didn't look like it had suffered any real harm.

"_Sam, down!_"

He hit the ground at Dean's shout, and something flew over his head and landed with a grunt. Dean's gun sounded twice—and no way in hell he'd missed at that range—but a man, about their age and with wild eyes, didn't even twitch.

"You made him go away!"

"What?" Sam didn't dare reach for his gun, not with the man still within lunging distance and with a curved blade clenched in one hand. Human or not—and Sam was _definitely _leaning towards not—he most certainly wasn't sane.

"You made my angel go away!"

"Dude, you're _claiming_ Zachariah?" He couldn't keep the disbelief out of his voice. He could see Dean creeping up behind the man, Ruby's knife in one hand, and tried to come up with something to hold his attention. Not that he thought the knife would do much good, since the guy didn't exactly seem like a demon, but since bullets hadn't done anything it was their next best option.

Fortunately, the man seemed perfectly willing to keep his focus on Sam. "He will make me real!"

Sam held up his hands slowly. "Look, why don't we just talk about this a little, all right? See, I don't really want Zachariah. In fact, I don't want him at all. He's all yours—you can have him. So why don't you just go back to passing out Bibles, or whatever it is you do for him, and I'll go back to my car, and we'll all just go on with our lives. I'm sure he'll be back to visit you soon."

"I will be a real man!" He lunged at Sam, but Sam managed to dodge the blade and twisted to throw him sideways. That gave him enough clearance to bring the shotgun to bear, but the man scrambled to his feet with a surprising speed and darted into the underbrush. "I will be real!"

"Dude, that was…weird," Dean said, coming to stand beside Sam as the rustling in the underbrush faded to nothing.

"Yeah. Let's get out of here."


	16. Dean: Average smite radii

_Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed._

* * * * *

Dean snickered as Sam pulled himself out of the tiny car and immediately stretched.

"You couldn't have picked anything larger? Seriously?" Sam asked as he climbed into the passenger seat of the Impala for the two-block trip from the mini-mart parking lot back to the motel.

Dean grinned. "Oh, I could have, but I was kind of in a hurry." And, besides, the seat had slid back far enough—just barely, but still far enough—to accommodate _him_. It wasn't his fault that his brother was a Sasquatch. He handed the stack of papers that had been in the passenger seat over to Sam, who added them to the stack he was carrying. "You think there's anything useful in there?"

"Don't know. Hope so."

"Could that guy have been the coroner? I mean, the nutcase back in Cold Oak? You said that he might be involved." Not that it explained why the guy had barely twitched when he'd shot him, but then again, he could think of weirder professions for a demon—or one of the couple dozen other passing-as-human monster types that they'd hunted in the past—than coroner.

"Nah." Sam shook his head. "There was a picture of the guy with his family hanging beside his desk, and he was way older. I was thinking maybe the nutcase is a ghost, though."

"What? What makes you think_ that?_ He looked pretty damn solid to me." Sam had managed to throw him, which wasn't something that was possible with most ghosts.

"Yeah, I know, but…well, we didn't check the place for EMF, and we never hit him with salt or iron so we can't totally rule it out. And he _was_ about my age. No more than a couple years younger, for sure." Sam shrugged, looking away. "If he died in Cold Oak—and it must have been relatively recently, given the clothes he was wearing—then maybe…."

Dean had no difficulty following his brother's train of thought after that comment. "You think he's one of the ones that old yellow eyes grabbed that didn't make it, and for some reason he didn't move on." He snorted. "You know, now that I think about it, I'm almost surprised there wouldn't be more of them. More ghosts, I mean. It's not like anybody there died pretty."

Sam nodded. "Exactly. So he can't leave Cold Oak, and he probably doesn't understand what happened to him, but he probably _does_ know that he had some kind of power, and who knows how being a ghost would affect that. We know Max could move things with his mind…maybe this guy specialized."

"As in with knives? That's a little sick."

Sam shrugged.

"So, what, for some reason he decides that Zachariah can make everything better if he just does him a few favors?" Dean turned into the first open spot at the back of the lot, and shut off the car.

"Or Zachariah _told_ him something like that, yeah. I mean, think about—'your powers were sent by Heaven to perform this task; do what I tell you to and I'll….'" Sam climbed out of the car and shut the door. "Well, I don't know what he promised, but you get the point."

"To 'make him real' probably. Dick." He slammed his door shut and then winced, patting the top of his baby in apology.

"Not going to get an argument from me on that point."

"So what the hell are we supposed to do about it?" Dean asked as they crossed the parking lot. "I mean, if the guy died in Cold Oak, I kind of doubt that there's a nicely marked grave anywhere. Not to mention that you said Ava had a pet demon—his remains could be just about anywhere. Or scattered across several anywheres."

"I know. And I don't know."

Dean shook his head and unlocked the motel room door, stepping inside, only to halt immediately and draw his gun. This was _not_ the motel room he'd left a couple hours ago.

He heard the fluttering of papers behind him as Sam stepped up beside him, his gun aimed over Dean's shoulder. "What the—?"

"Cas?" Dean demanded, unsure exactly what he should be aiming at.

"I am here."

Which was true enough—he was seated on the bed farthest from the door, which was technically where Dean had left him—but it bore about as much resemblance to the bed that Dean had left him on as this room did to their old motel room. "What the hell?"

"What happened?" Sam asked at the same time. "I mean…this place didn't look like this before. Did you do this?"

"No. Gabriel was here."

Dean gritted his teeth. "You're joking."

"No."

Dean and Sam exchanged looks, lowering their weapons in concert, although Dean was seriously starting to consider the logistics of combining a flare gun and a water gun filled with holy oil. Or maybe just a flamethrower _fueled_ with holy oil; that would be faster. With a shake of his head, he took a few more steps inside. The place was clean, that was the biggest difference, but it was also considerably larger. And he hadn't even known that they _made_ flatscreen televisions that big. "Are you all right?"

"I am fine."

Sam crossed the room, dropping the stack of papers on one of the bedside tables, and then went into the bathroom. Or at least started to. "Um…apparently we now have a spa."

"He fixed the pipes too," Cas offered.

Dean frowned as Sam stared at Cas for a moment and then went into the bathroom shaking his head. Gabriel saving Cas from Zachariah was one thing. He still didn't believe that Gabriel had done it out of the goodness of his possessed—or possess_ing_, or however that worked out—little heart, but that wasn't really the point. Saving his little brother was…explainable. _Redecorating_, on the other hand, was just weird.

He shook himself slightly and then dropped down on the other bed. "Okay, so aside from the fact that personalities number 255 and 256—the handyman and the interior decorator—apparently got loose, did he do anything else?"

"He—"

"Where did the rabbit come from?" Sam interrupted, reemerging from the bathroom holding one by the scruff of its neck.

"I believe that's the manager."

Both Dean and Sam turned to stare at Cas.

"He was quite…irate…that Gabriel appropriated space from other rooms to improve this one. Apparently some of the other guests complained. Gabriel was somewhat annoyed when he walked in on our conversation."

"So he made him a fluffy bunny?" That, actually, Dean had no trouble believing. He gave the rabbit one last look and then turned back to Cas. "Did he do anything _else_?"

"He talked, although not a great deal. He left shortly after the incident with the manager." Cas frowned slightly. "Do either of you have a map of Egypt?"

"I…huh?" Dean looked over at Sam, who looked equally confused.

"Do you have a map of Egypt?"

"Uh, yeah, we heard you the first time," Sam said. "I'll pull one up on the computer, if you want. But can I ask why?"

"Gabriel made several references to a river called Denial. I am not aware of this river, but it's apparently of some importance. It would be easier to simply visit, but as that is not an option at the moment, a map will have to suffice."

"Maybe he was talking about the Nile?" Sam suggested, looking around uncertainly before shaking his head and putting the rabbit back in the bathroom. Dean would have objected, but he wasn't sure what to do with the thing either.

Cas shook his head. "No. He was very clear. 'Denial, not just a river in Egypt.'"

"That's all yours, Sammy," Dean said with a grin, before stretching out on the bed and grabbing for the remote. Since the giant TV was _there_, they might as well get some use out of it.

Sam gave him a glare and then rubbed his forehead and turned to Cas. "It's a pun. You know, a play on words? _De_-nial, _the_ Nile…he was saying that he thinks you're in denial about something."

"Ah." Cas frowned slightly. "That actually makes a great deal more sense, in the context of the conversation."

Dean tried to keep his snort to himself, although judging by Sam's second glare he wasn't entirely successful. And then the screen flickered and a larger-than-life version of Miss April appeared. With…was that Jazmine, from last week's _Busty Asian Beauties_? "Oh, _sweet_." Gabriel was still a total dick, but at least he was a dick with good taste.

"Dude, shut that off!" Sam said with a yelp.

"What? _Why?_"

"Because I am not watching porn five feet away from an angel!"

* * * * *

"Good to go?"

Sam nodded, shouldering the shotgun. "I still have no idea how we're supposed to _find_ the remains, but at least we're doing something."

Dean nodded. He hadn't liked leaving Cas alone in the motel room again, but the guy was still having trouble sitting up on his own never mind any actual physical exertion, so putting him in the back of the Impala and giving him an iron crowbar wasn't really an option. And Cas insisted that Gabriel was the only angel who knew where he was and that his psychotic brother wouldn't hurt him—however little Dean trusted _that_ assurance—so….

He snorted. Of course, even if it harm wasn't intended, Gabriel still might end up _traumatizing _Cas beyond all recognition. He'd flipped through all the channels available on the television last night, and there had been about ten covering various sports and about a hundred devoted to porn. Sam had spent half an hour bitching about stupid brothers—Dean chose to believe that he was referring to Gabriel—and average smite radii before giving up and falling asleep on the magically-lengthened sofa.

Not to mention that there was still a fluffy white rabbit in their bathroom. God knew what they were supposed to do about _that_ situation. Cas hadn't sounded too optimistic about his ability to reverse Gabriel's transformation, at least not at any point in the near future, and at some point _someone_ was going to start asking questions about the missing manager.

"Circle the town first, see if we see anything especially unusual?" Sam suggested, interrupting his train of thought.

"Sounds good to me. And if we notice any random piles of bones, I vote we burn first and worry about pesky things like identification later."

"Agreed."

Their first circle of the buildings didn't yield anything useful, nor did a second look-through of the area the local cops had roped off. No footprints in the dirt, which lent a little more credibility to the ghost theory, but the ground did have some scrub coverage, so—

"Check this out," Sam called.

"What?"

"Paint."

"Paint?"

"Yeah." He indicated a few splotches in the grass. "Same color as the stuff on the rock."

Which made it less likely that it was a ghost, since nobody had actually been found skinned in Cold Oak and you didn't see a lot of ghosts hauling paint cans. Well, poltergeists sometimes did that kind of shit, but.... He shook his head. "What the _hell_?"


	17. Cas: Sam, Warrior Princess

_Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed. Had a long weekend and crappy weather, so this chapter's coming a little early. Enjoy.  
_

* * * * *

A part of Castiel couldn't help but be grateful when the Winchesters finally left the motel room for Cold Oak. It wasn't as though he didn't appreciate their concern for him, but he failed to see how repeated references to the water, granola bars, or the phone would be of any assistance in the event that something went truly wrong.

Besides which, he had his own task to accomplish today while they were out searching for the potential ghost. The tendrils of power currently sustaining his wards were coming either from Gabriel himself or from some sort of power reservoir he'd set up, and, in theory, at least, Castiel should be able to trace them back to him. He very much doubted that either Winchester would approve of his plan, which was why he hadn't mentioned it to them, but with very little else to spend his time on, he saw no reason that he shouldn't at least make the attempt to find his brother. He wasn't capable of a physical visit, and wouldn't be for some time, but a spectral one was within his current capabilities.

After the Winchesters left, he spent some time examining the tendrils in great detail, and then, after one last check of the motel room for any potential danger, he separated himself from his shell and sent himself winging along the strongest.

It was a relief to once again be unbound, untethered by the human shell he was forced to inhabit to communicate with mortals, and if he hadn't had a purpose it would have been all-too easy to lose himself in the feeling. But he did have a purpose, and as he moved further from his shell, he was forced to spend more and more attention tracing the tendril. It wasn't completely concealed—that would have been impossible, even for an archangel—but Gabriel had taken some pains to ensure that a casual observer would not take notice of it among the other energy currents.

So much of his attention was on tracing the tendril that when it abruptly dissolved into nothingness, he found himself more than slightly disoriented. It was _there_, and then it _wasn't_, and…. He reached out cautiously, past the point at which the tendril disappeared, and then—

_*Warning*Danger*Threat*_

He halted immediately. He could sense nothing around him, no danger from the physical world, but…. He reached out again cautiously.

_*Danger*Warning*Danger*_

There was someone—or at least some_thing_—there, and he sent out a wave of _*Uncertainty*Confusion*Not-a-threat*_

_*Danger*Threat* _gave way to_ *Amusement*Exasperation*_ and suddenly Gabriel was just _there_.

_*Surprise*Shock*_ And perhaps he shouldn't have felt either, but a moment ago there had been no sign of any of his siblings, and now…. He felt a link offered, and after a quick check of his power channels, accepted. It would be painful, but—_*Pain*Shock*Pain*PAIN*_PAIN_*_ He had not expected _that_ much pain, and he struggled to break the link, only to find his attempts firmly rebuffed.

Suddenly he found the link released and himself once again in his shell, but instead of the motel room he was currently sharing with Dean and Sam, was in a cushioned chair in a small and decidedly littered room. Gabriel and a small dog stared at him in silence for several minutes, and then Gabriel reached out and smacked him in the head. "You're lucky I didn't fry you by accident. What part of 'rest' don't you understand?"

"I am well aware of what 'rest' means, but even if I were not, it's unlikely that physical abuse would improve the situation." He looked around but was unable to determine more about his location than that it was a small, cluttered room several hundred miles from where he had last been. "Did I shift here?" He did not remember doing so, nor did he think he was capable of doing so at the moment, but perhaps the pain had given him strength.

"I brought you here," Gabriel said, annoyance giving way to a half-smile with a small shake of his head. "Wasn't sure what would happen if I just dropped you from the link without somewhere to put you, but I didn't want to run into those two guard dogs of yours either."

"They went back to Cold Oak."

"They've got their pictures in the dictionary under the word 'stubborn,' don't they?"

"Possible, but unlikely."

Gabriel's grin grew. "So while they went off to play, you decided to take your consciousness for a little walk, huh? Well, guess I can't say I blame you. After that much time in their company, I'd be ready for a change too. Éclair?"

The complete non-sequitur confused Castiel for a moment, and then he frowned at a tray of pastries that appeared at his elbow. "No, thank you."

Gabriel shrugged and popped one into his mouth. "Your loss."

"You allowed me to trace you." It wasn't a question. If Gabriel could conceal himself so completely when Castiel was, for all intents and purposes, in front of him, he could have done far more than he had to hide those tendrils of power.

Gabriel didn't make any direct response, instead eating another pastry before offering one to the dog. Who, unlike Castiel, accepted with alacrity. "So I don't suppose you're here to give me the good news that one of them has suddenly seen the light and is willing to end this mess, are you?" Gabriel asked.

"No." He'd simply been…curious. Which, upon reflection, came as a decided surprise. As a member of the garrison, approaching an archangel for a triviality would have incurred a severe reprimand, at the very least. Approaching an archangel out of _curiosity_, something that wasn't encouraged to begin with…. He shook his head slightly. He had no idea what that would have garnered, but he very much doubted that it would have been pleasant.

Gabriel sighed, not seeming to mind that Castiel had not voiced an actual reason for his presence. "Ah, well, I can always hope." Another chair appeared in front of Castiel's, and he sank down into it, the dog immediately leaping up to rest on his lap. "So what else is going on in the Sam-and-Dean show today? Abject mental trauma? Self-flagellation?"

"No." Castiel frowned. At least not as far as he knew. "Did you force them into a television reality again?" If so, Castiel hoped that they would once again have the wits to free themselves, because he would be of no help whatsoever.

"What?" Gabriel shook his head. "No. Using the same trick twice is just so passé." He smirked. "Although, you know, I had some great ideas that I never got to use. I mean, think about it. Dean the Science Guy. Lost in Space. Oprah." He smirk grew. "Sam: Warrior Princess."

"Sam is male." And while he didn't recognize any of the references, he suspected that, at the very least, Dean would object to being referred to as 'science guy.'

Gabriel groaned and then his chair swiveled abruptly and came to rest beside Castiel's. The dog was apparently accustomed to actions of this sort, because aside from lowering its head to maintain its balance on Gabriel's lap, it didn't seem at all bothered.

A screen in front of them that rivaled the size of the one in the motel room flickered to life, and Castiel frowned as he recognized Sam and Dean. Sam held a shotgun at the ready, while Dean scanned the exterior of an abandoned building with what appeared to be their EMF meter. And then Dean threw up his free hand and then smacked the thing.

"What's wrong?" Sam asked, looking back over his shoulder.

"Are you sure this thing is working? Did you replace the batteries? Because I'm getting nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada." He waved it around. "If there was a ghost here in town last night, there should at least be some residual EMF."

Sam shrugged slightly, his attention still on the open space in front of the building. "So maybe I was wrong and it's not a ghost."

Dean smacked the EMF meter again, grumbling when it remained silent. "Which means we're back at square one. _Great_."

"Well…actually, maybe not. Take this." Sam held out the shotgun, and Dean fumbled with the EMF meter for a moment before jamming it into his pocket.

"Needs more drama," Gabriel said with a shake of his head, and then he snapped his fingers.

A rather…wet…monster appeared behind the Winchesters, covered in green, stringy slime. Neither Winchester noticed, their attention focused the phone that Sam had pulled out of his pocket, and Castiel turned to frown at Gabriel.

"Not a horror fan?" Gabriel asked. "Well, there's always romance." He snapped his fingers again and the monster was gone, replaced by the two simulacrums that had been in the motel room yesterday. The simulacrum that had tried to feed Castiel moved forward to hang on Dean's arm, while the second plucked Sam's phone from his hand.

"What the _hell_?" Sam asked, snatching his phone back.

Dean reluctantly pulled away from the kiss his simulacrum was offering. "I'll give you three guesses, and the first two don't count."

That rather defeated the purpose of three guesses, Castiel thought, but Sam just groaned. "Doesn't he have better things to do than harass us?"

Dean shook his head, sidestepping his simulacrum's rather determined lunge. "I don't know, but have I mentioned that I hate him?"

"Now, that's a little harsh," Gabriel objected to the screen. "I'm just trying to keep things interesting. You two wandering around some old ghost town, what kind of television does that make?"

"At least he's tormenting us and not Cas," Sam said after a moment, using his long arms to keep his simulacrum, which seemed to be doing its best to attach itself to his chest, at bay.

Dean looked around, frowning. "You _hope_."

"I would never!" Gabriel crossed his arms over his chest and then looked over at Castiel. "I'm not tormenting you, am I?"

"No."

"I mean, you came to see _me_, right?"

"Yes."

"That's what I thought." He glared at the screen. "Just for that, I'm sending Swamp Thing back."

Both Sam and Dean flung themselves backwards as their simulacrums merged together, once again becoming large and green and slimy. Dean brought the shotgun to bear and pulled the trigger twice—although neither impact caused much more that a 'splat' when it struck the creature in the chest—while Sam pulled his smaller gun out of his waistband and fired several times.

"Gabriel," Castiel said, as the thing advanced on the Winchesters and Dean caught his heel on a root, falling backwards.

"Oh, _fine_. Spoilsport." And then the creature was gone again, and Sam and Dean were once again alone in Cold Oak.

"_Hate_ him," Dean repeated, swatting Sam's hand away and shoving himself up off the ground.

"Let's just get back to the motel and check on Cas," Sam said, keeping his gun in his hand and once again scanning the area warily. "We can look at the pictures there. Besides, I think we've done about all we can do here today, especially if it's not a ghost."

Gabriel's grin grew as the two of them approached the car, and Castiel reached out to catch his arm before he could snap his fingers. Not that Gabriel needed the physical action to enforce his will—the furthest thing from it, in fact—but at least Castiel's reaction was a tangible objection to whatever Gabriel was about to do.

"I won't make it _permanent_," Gabriel objected.

If Dean and Sam were ever going to get to the point that they didn't hate Gabriel—and Castiel had some faint hope that they might, eventually—he was well aware that it would be easiest reached if Gabriel hadn't done anything to Dean's car. The…what had Dean called it, after their time in the television reality? The Sampala? Well, whatever he had called it, it had been bad enough. "Please?"

Gabriel lowered his arm, grumbling. "Oh, fine. I suppose you want me to return you now, too?"

"I would prefer to be there when they get back," Castiel admitted. He would just as soon avoid the scene that would no doubt occur if he ended up returning after the Winchesters did. Especially if Gabriel was with him.

Gabriel sighed, but Castiel wasn't surprised to find himself once again seated on his bed in the motel room a moment later, Gabriel sitting cross-legged beside him.

"If you want to talk to me again, _call_," Gabriel said firmly. "As long as the tendrils are in place, it's as good as a private link." He shook his head. "I just about swatted you earlier, before I recognized you."

"I will call," Castiel agreed. He wasn't entirely sure what 'swatted' equated to in Gabriel's lexicon, but he very much doubted that it would be pleasant.

"Good." Gabriel considered the large television for a moment and then snapped his fingers, bringing images to the screen. "There. If you need something else to keep you busy, watch that. Learn humor."


	18. Sam: Analyzing archangels

_Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed._

* * * * *

"Uh, Cas, why are you watching Gilligan's Island?" Dean asked as they walked back into the motel room.

Cas, who, as far as Sam could tell with a quick glance, wasn't paying any attention to the television set, looked over at them with a frown. "Gabriel's doing. He thinks that I should learn humor."

"Oh, yeah? How's that going for you?"

"If they got rid of the small one, they would have escaped the island approximately three times in the first half an hour. I have since ceased watching."

"Going well, then," Dean said with a nod.

Sam glared at Dean as he shrugged the bad of weapons off his shoulder and dropped it beside the bed, but Dean just grinned in return and turned his attention back to Cas. "You know, your brother set the blob on us earlier. I checked the Bible—shouldn't he be off blowing a trumpet or playing a harp or something? You know, instead of harassing us."

Cas shook his head slightly. "No. He was a messenger, but humans got his method of delivery _very_ wrong. And he called the monster Swamp Thing, I believe. He wasn't pleased that you thought that he was tormenting me."

"You were there?" Sam asked.

"_Was _he tormenting you?" Dean demanded at the same time.

Cas shook his head again and indicated the television. "No. But he—we, rather—could see you."

"Great, we're a now sitcom on Angel-TV," Dean grumbled, before shaking his head. "I'm going to go pick up some pizza or something; I'm getting hungry. Cas, do you want anything?"

"No."

"Get us something to drink besides beer," Sam called after him. Dean either waved or flipped him off in response—it was hard to say which through the dingy motel window—and with a groan Sam threw himself down on the other bed, tossing his phone onto the side table. "Your brother is kind of headache-inducing, you know that? Of course, so is this whole hunt." He shook his head as Cas turned to stare at him. "Never mind. Uh, if I forget, remind me to check the pictures when Dean gets back, would you?"

Cas nodded, and then indicated the remote. "I would not object if you wished to change the channel."

"Huh? Nah, Gilligan is fine. Better than hot-and-cold running porn, no matter what Dean thinks." A rather disturbing thought occurred to him, and he took a longer look at what was playing on the television, but it appeared to be the actual Gilligan's Island rather than some terrifying porn version so he was able to relax again. "So, what, Gabriel just decided to drop in for another visit? Did he turn any more of the motel staff into small, furry mammals?"

"Actually, I went to visit him," Cas corrected.

"Seriously?" Sam rolled onto his side and propping his head up on his elbow. Cas was considering him with his usual intensity, but there was something almost questioning in his gaze. "Then again, I guess you aren't really much for joking around. Are you all right?" Presumably if Gabriel had done anything to him he'd have said something about it, but then again, Cas was practically a walking definition of the word 'stoic.'

"I am fine. I don't believe that he intends to harm me." He went silent, and then, abruptly, "May I ask you a question?" He seemed to consider for a moment. "Besides that, of course."

"What?" It took Sam a moment to process the question, at which point he wasn't sure what surprised him more: that Cas was actually asking rather than simply demanding an explanation for whatever he wanted to know, or that Cas was asking _him_. It wasn't that he disliked Cas or thought that Cas disliked him—at least not anymore—but he was still accustomed to thinking of him as _Dean's_ angel. It was rare that they interacted much without his brother present. Unless, of course, the question specifically pertained to _him_. He frowned for a second, trying to decide what it might be, and then sat up, turning his full attention to Cas. "Yeah, of course. Go ahead."

"I don't…understand…Gabriel's behavior."

Sam snorted. "Right there with you."

Cas looked around for a moment and then frowned at him. "Obviously."

He bit back a grin. "I mean that I agree that he is very confusing." And also a dick, but it would probably be best to refrain from insulting Gabriel to Cas' face for the time being, given that the guy had saved his ass and was apparently keeping him entertained while he and Dean were out hunting. Technically, probably, saved all their asses, because he very much doubted that Zachariah would have stopped with Cas if Dean had continued to refuse. It was kind of annoying. "So what's your ques—ah, sorry, is that the angel killing sword?" He hadn't noticed it before, half-hidden in the folds of Cas' blankets as it was, but it sure looked like the same blade.

"Yes," Cas agreed.

Sam stared. He had a hard time seeing Cas stabbing Gabriel in the back while the guy picked television channels, but maybe Gabriel had made threats? Or maybe he'd tried to send something worse than Swamp Thing after them? "Is Gabriel still…around?" he asked tentatively.

"Of course," Cas responded sharply. Sharply for him, at least. "But it occurred to me last night that I should give this to you and Dean while you are hunting in Cold Oak. Just in case Michael does send someone else." His eyes flicked to the side for a moment. "I simply…forgot…this morning."

And damned if he wasn't actually managing to look embarrassed. Sam kept his grin to himself.

"I had just enough energy to summon it to me after Gabriel left." He held it out slowly, hilt first.

Sam noticed that Cas' hands weren't shaking anymore, which he took to be a good sign, but he still had some reservations as he accepted the blade. He was pretty sure that he'd be able to use it on Zachariah, if it came to that, but still the idea of killing _angels_….

"If you have to use it, _use it_. You're unlikely to have more than one chance." Cas' voice was flat, and Sam wasn't sure whether he was just stating a fact or if he'd used some of his angel mojo to read the hesitation in Sam's mind.

"Thanks," Sam said after a minute, shifting to grab the weapon bag. It was as good a place to keep the thing as anywhere. Felt a little sacrilegious, but then again the thing was for killing angels. That was about as sacrilegious as it got. "I'm sorry, you had a question, right?"

Cas nodded slightly. "As I said, I don't believe that Gabriel intends me harm. But I don't…." He trailed off with a slight shake of his head. "I don't understand what he does intend."

"And you think I can help with that?"

"I wish to know your opinion of his behavior. It is far more…mercurial…than I am accustomed to."

Sam suspected that 'human' would be a better translation, although, to be fair, it was rare that you found a human who could turn you into a rabbit if you annoyed him.

"He has been on Earth for some time," Cas continued. "I thought perhaps that you might have some…insight."

After a minute of Cas staring at him expectantly, Sam sighed and flopped back on the bed, tucking his hands under his head. "Well, you said that he stopped Zachariah because he didn't agree with him torturing you, right?"

"Yes. I understand that."

"And the warding is probably kind of the same thing, right?"

"Yes. But it was…unnecessary…for him to fix the plumbing."

"Well, that's true, but maybe it was irritating him too," Sam suggested. "I mean, he was visiting you at the time." And that squeaking had been annoying as all hell.

"Perhaps," Cas said after a moment. "But he fixed the rest of the room as well, attempted to provide me with food…welcomed my presence today."

The last was added much more quietly, and Sam turned to look at him, frowning. "You thought that he wouldn't? Why did you go looking for him, then?" Cas wasn't exactly stupid, and he, of any of them, would know what the other angels were capable of.

"I did not think."

Cas appearing even mildly embarrassed twice in one day had to be some kind of record. Maybe Gabriel's visit had shaken him up more than he was letting on. "What do you mean?" Sam prompted.

"There are…ranks…within the garrison."

"Yeah, I kind of got that out."

"Archangels are of the highest rank. I am—_was_—not."

Sam nodded slightly. He'd figured that out too.

"I had no reason to approach him today. No news—certainly not the news that he desired—no relevant question, nothing. I simply wished to know where he was. That would not be considered an acceptable reason to disturb him, and he would have been well within his rights to rebuke me or at the very least banish me offhand. Yet he welcomed me into his stronghold, in fact assisted me there and back as I am not yet capable of shifting my shell. The only displeasure he showed was that I was not 'resting.'" He frowned slightly. "And I am not certain, but I believe that he was attempting to entertain me."

Sam experienced a moment of horror at the idea of Cas being subjected to Gabriel's idea of entertainment, especially given what Dean had admitted about their trip to the cathouse up in Maine, and then forced the scene from his mind. Hopefully the 'entertainment' had been nothing worse than those damn creatures that had popped up back in Cold Oak.

"I don't understand," Cas repeated quietly.

"Well, I can make a guess," Sam offered, after a minute. "But that's all it will be. I mean, we didn't spend a lot of time analyzing archangels in Psych 101."

"A guess would be acceptable."

"It sounds a little like he's lonely. Just…hear me out," he added, when Cas looked as though he was going to object. "It has to be hard for you. I mean, being stuck down here with pretty much just me and Dean for company when you aren't out searching for God."

"I don't find your company lacking," Cas said.

"Thanks. But…well, we aren't exactly angels, are we?"

He seemed to find some faint amusement in that. "No."

Sam nodded. "And Gabriel's been down here by himself, cut off, for longer than you. A _lot_ longer, I think." That was an assumption on his part—he could only confirm three years based on his own personal interaction with the jackass—but Cas didn't object to the statement so he figured that he was correct. "Not to mention that even if he isn't going around calling us mud monkeys like Uriel was, given his persona as the Trickster, I kind of doubt that he likes us well enough to have some human friends around that he can just drop in on when he feels like it. And those people he makes seem to be pretty single minded." Regardless of whether their focus was wielding a chainsaw or fulfilling various…other…functions, he doubted that Gabriel spent a lot of time sitting down chatting with any of them.

"They are not people," Cas corrected. "They are simulacrums; incapable of true thought, merely of completing a specific function. Gabriel is much, much powerful than I am, but he is still not capable of _creating_ life."

"He can create rabbits," Sam pointed out, with a wave towards the bathroom. "Not to mention Doctor Sexy and all of his TV-land friends."

"TV-land was a hallucination of sorts…an alternate reality created primarily within you and Dean's minds with very little interaction with the physical world. Hence, you spread holy oil on the floor of the warehouse, even though you thought you were elsewhere at the time. And the rabbit was a transformation of life. Not creation."

"Ah." Sam had pretty much figured out the hallucination part—although it was nice to have it confirmed—but the rabbit thing still sounded a little bit like splitting hairs. By that logic, Gabriel could be out transforming bacteria into whatever the hell he felt like. Then again, now probably wasn't the time to push it. Maybe there was a size requirement or something. "Look, my point is, maybe he misses having other angels to talk to. I…." He trailed off, unsure whether he should go on or not.

Cas tilted his head.

"You know I left my family for awhile, right?" Sam asked. "Quit hunting to go to college?"

"Yes."

"Well, it's not quite the same thing—hell, it's a couple hundred orders of magnitude away—but there were times back at school that I would have given just about _anything_ to talk to another hunter. Someone who understood why I put salt at the windows and the doors, slept with an iron knife under my pillow, kept a bottle of holy water in my backpack, and had a trunk at the foot of my bed holding a dozen different weapons that the average college student wouldn't have had the vaguest idea what to do with." His freshman year his roommate had gotten drunk one night and opened that trunk, and it had taken some fast talking the next morning to convince him that they were all stage weapons and that Sam wasn't some kind of psycho killer. Not to mention that he'd been forced to join the drama club for the rest of the year, just to give credence to the story. After that, he'd put a lock on the chest, even though he knew damn well his father would have had a fit about adding a delay in his ability to access to his guns.

"But it was your choice not to contact anyone."

"Yeah, because if I had, I would have gotten dragged right back into the life I wanted to get away from. So I cut myself off, totally." Even from Dean, after his second year, which had been the hardest thing he'd ever done in his entire life. But he and Jess had been starting to get serious, and he hadn't wanted to risk losing her because Dean needed 'just a little research help' with yet another God-knew-what.

He shook his head, not particularly wanted to remember how well his attempt at normalcy had turned out. It was a long time ago, and it didn't really matter anymore. Sometimes—hell, most of the time—it felt like those memories belonged to a totally different person anyway. He shook his head again and returned his attention to Cas. "Maybe it's the same sort of thing for Gabriel."

"It is possible," Cas acknowledged after a moment. "If he revealed himself to Michael or Lucifer, or any of their respective underlings, they would certainly attempt to force him to choose a side."

"Right. Which seems to be exactly what he's trying to avoid." Not bringing about the apocalypse, no, he was apparently all for that. He just didn't want to pick a side. Dick. Or at least coward, like Dean said. Sam shrugged slightly. "You…well, 'neutral' isn't the right word, I guess, but at least you aren't trying to make him pick one over the other." Nor was Cas likely to try and kill him in an attempt to keep Gabriel from choosing someone _else's _side, while Sam suspected that neither Lucifer nor Michael would show that kind of restraint. "Maybe that makes you safe to talk to."

Cas frowned and then nodded more firmly, repeating, "It is possible."

"You could just ask him, you know." Since, apparently, Gabriel didn't mind Cas' company. "And maybe convince him to turn the manager back at the same time?" Cas' expression didn't change, and he shrugged against the mattress. "Or not, it was just a thought."

"Do you think that I should continue to visit him?"

Sam opened his mouth and then shut it again. He didn't _like_ Gabriel. But, first of all, no matter what he thought, he had no business telling an angel what he could and couldn't do. And second of all, Gabriel was Cas' brother. Considering how well he and Dean tended to do separated….

He shifted slightly, avoiding Cas' expectant gaze and hoping that the angel wasn't reading his mind right now. Because third of all, no matter what Dean thought, they could use all the help they could get with this damn apocalypse. _Any_ help they could get, even if it just amounted to Gabriel kicking the ass of any angel that messed with Cas. And maybe he should be expecting some sort of deep plot, especially after what had happened with Ruby, but somehow he had a hard time seeing Gabriel managing anything subtle. Manipulation or otherwise. Totally _obtuse_, yes—Sam still wasn't sure what those six months without Dean were supposed to have taught him, aside from the fact that he was more of a bastard than he really wanted to admit, most of the time—but not subtle. So if Cas visiting him happened to bias him towards giving them a little help or info or whatever now and then, he was all for it.

"Dean doesn't like him," Cas added in the silence.

"Dean's still sore about getting killed off a couple hundred times." Sam shrugged slightly. "Look, he's your brother. It's your call. _Personally_, I'd say go for it but that's just my opinion. Course, if you do decide to keep visiting him, I'd also say you might not want to bring him by to see us too often." Especially when Dean had access to an angel-killing sword, although he had no idea whether it would work on Gabriel or not. It probably _didn't_ on archangels, otherwise Cas would have suggested that they figure out a way to use it against Lucifer. Still, no need to put that kind of temptation in front of his brother.

Apparently his answer satisfied Cas, because he didn't ask any more questions. Sam suspected that this would be the point at which Cas would normally teleport away, but since he wasn't capable of it at the moment he'd apparently decided that staring at the wall was just as effective.

"Hey, Cas?" Sam found himself asking.

Cas turned slightly, cocking his head. "Yes?"

"Why did you ask me and not Dean? I mean, about why I think Gabriel is acting the way he is."

"Your answers to questions are generally more...clear," Cas said after a moment. "And because I was not certain that Dean would give me any answer beyond, 'Because he's a dick.'"

Sam bit back a grin at Cas' fairly accurate mimicry of his brother. "Fair enough." With a sigh, he reached over and snagged his phone off the table, flipping it open. He'd recharged it last night, grabbing it on his way out the door this morning with Dean, but he'd never actually checked to see whether he'd managed to get any pictures of the guy back in Cold Oak or not. Since he apparently wasn't a ghost, the field was pretty open as to…. "Ah, _hell_."


	19. Dean: A large Morris

_Depressed. Depressed, depressed, depressed. Okay, not seriously, but I'm still not very happy at the moment. I had to make an unexpected trip out of town (and out of the country) for work, and I just finished a mini-marathon of all the Supernatural episodes I missed while I was gone, plus the new one. Three hours of rather depressing television, and then things _finally_ started looking up with Hammer of the Gods. But _no, _can't have that…I won't go into spoilers here, but let's just say I'm depressed again. _

_Now that's out of my system, I apologize to people that have been waiting for updates. The only laptop that went with me on my trip was my work laptop, which meant that editing/posting this story had to wait until I got home and had access to my personal computer. The good news is, updates should be pretty regular from here on out unless something else comes up. _

_Thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed so far, I appreciate the encouragement._

* * * * *

"Bitch, bitch, bitch," Dean said, rolling his eyes at his brother.

"I asked you to bring back something _other_ than beer, jerk," Sam said. "Not bring back the Midwest Sample Pack! Seriously, would it have killed you to pick up a two-liter of coke or something?"

"La-la, I can't hear you."

"Why not? Is something wrong with your hearing?"

Dean heard Sam choke—on the beer he was _drinking_, so he could just quit his whining—as they both turned to stare at Cas.

"He heard me just fine, he's just being a dick," Sam answered after a moment. "Isn't it nice to know that it runs in other families besides yours?"

Dean opened his mouth to snap at Sam, because no way in hell was he going to put up with his little brother comparing him to those damn angels, when Sam tossed his phone in Dean's direction. Dean caught it absently. "What?"

"Picture of the guy we're hunting."

He flipped open the phone and made a face at the image that popped up on the screen. "Damn it, I hate being right all the time." Cas frowned at him and made some comment about the inaccuracy of that statement, while Sam suffered a sudden coughing fit during which several smartass remarks were made. Dean chose to ignore them both. "I hate skinwalkers."

"Yeah. I figure we should probably head back to Cold Oak tomorrow," Sam said. "I'm not sure we'll have any more luck _finding_ him than we did today, but…."

"At least we know what weapons to take. Hell, we might even get lucky. There's supposed to be a first time for everything." Dean pulled the weapon bag over and began to sort through it, checking their stock of silver bullets. He was pretty sure they had a decent supply...it wasn't like they'd had a lot of cause to use them lately. "It's not _fair_, dealing with skinwalkers. It's like they're cheating or something."

"I know." Sam snorted. "I mean, we don't even know what he's going to look like for sure. There's the guy we saw, but who knows how long he'll keep that face. Guess I should try and pull up a picture of what that deputy used to like, that might help." He shook his head and glared at the beer in his hand before taking another long drink and turning for the computer.

Dean frowned as his hand encountered an unfamiliar—or at least unfamiliar in terms of its presence in their weapons bag—object. "Hey, where did this come from?"

Sam didn't even turn to see what he was holding up. "Donation from Cas, in case we run in to Zachariah again."

"Ah." He spun the angel-killing sword in his hand easily. It had a nice balance. Except…. He turned to Cas. "Are you sure you don't want to hang onto this? I mean, in case Gabriel shows up again? He seems to have a thing for harassing you lately, and you aren't exactly in any shape to outrun him."

Cas frowned. "I've told you; I don't believe that Gabriel has any intention of harming me. Zachariah, on the other hand, is certainly willing to harm the two of you. I would prefer that you were armed against him."

"Great. Comforting." Cas' frown deepened, probably at the skepticism he wasn't bothering to hide, and he waved it off. At this rate they were going to have to start _collecting_ angel-killing swords, because while Cas was absolutely right about Zachariah, Dean wasn't about to start trusting Gabriel either. He paused, sword still in hand. "Hey, as long as Gabriel _was_ here again, I don't suppose that he did something about Roger Rabbit?"

"Who is Roger Rabbit?"

"You mean, 'Who Framed….'" Dean shook his head at Cas' blank look and Sam's eye roll as his brother turned to look at him. "Never mind. Is the motel manager still small, furry, and living in our bathroom?"

"Yes."

"Great."

* * * * *

Dean brought the Impala to an abrupt halt. "Did you hear that?" The question was pretty much moot as Sam had his seatbelt off and was already half out of the car, and Dean hurried to shut it down and follow his brother.

They'd once again left Cas in the motel room and had planned to start their search this morning along the trail, since the trail was the only thing the killings had had in common, but it sounded like that scream had come from one of the larger buildings by the road leading in from the highway. They hadn't searched it yesterday—no EMF anywhere near it—but it might have been beyond Cas' sensing range during their first visit to Cold Oak, which meant that it could be—

Another scream rang out, and he and Sam exchanged glances and then picked up their pace. The building the noise had come from was large, but it was as old as the rest, and hinges on the main door gave way when Sam kicked it. "Which way?"

Dean glared. "You think I know?" There were stacks of crap everywhere…bags, pallets, crates, that sort of thing. Old ones, but they were doing just find in terms of obstructing his view.

"I think this was a mill," Sam said, examining one of the crates.

"Yeah, great, that helps." He glared as Sam stretched to look over the top of a pile—freaking Sasquatch—but aside from a roll of his eyes Sam didn't comment.

Yet another scream rang out before Dean could say anything else, and the two of them began to make their way among the piles towards the noise, guns at the ready. It hadn't exactly sounded human, but it had sounded pained, and—

Sam came to an abrupt halt, and Dean nearly ran into him. "Angels?" he hissed.

"No," Sam responded just as quietly. "Check it out."

Dean shifted to glance around Sam and found a tall man with light blond hair, bearing a definite resemblance to the grainy image of the murdered deputy that Sam had found in the local paper, kneeling on a large circular stone. As Dean watched, the man spread his arms a bloodied knife clutched in one hand, and began to chant. Dean frowned. He didn't claim to be a master at Latin, but he was more than good enough to follow a basic incantation, and…. He looked over at Sam. "Did he just invoke a large Morris?" He wasn't sure exactly what that meant, but even in Latin it sounded pretty dirty.

Sam glanced back, his expression confused. "Well, technically he interrogated a large Morris—quaesa is 'to interrogate', quae_so_ is 'to invoke'—but I suspect invoke was what he meant. Maybe he's calling a demon?"

"Morris the demon?" Yeah, that didn't sound stupid or anything. "And why the hell would he call on a demon when he was yelling about angels yesterday?" Dean tensed. Unless Cas had a _brother _named Morris…he switched his gun to his other hand and reached for the angel-killing sword.

Sam shrugged. "Well, I don't know about you, but if he can't even get an invocation right, I don't think we need to worry about anything supernatural happening any time soon. I'll take a picture to make sure he's the skinwalker, you take the shot if he is?"

Dean wasn't sure that he agreed with Sam's assessment about what might or might not happen—for all they knew the angels were watching this place and would do what they felt like regardless of the skinwalker's presence—but then again, if that was the case, the winged dicks would probably have already turned up by now. And sitting here staring wasn't accomplishing anything. He wasn't sure what had done the screaming, assuming it hadn't been the probably-skinwalker himself, but if it had been another person, doing nothing wasn't helping. He nodded in agreement, letting his hand fall from the angel-killing sword and returning his gun to his dominant hand. As the man began to lower the knife again, they stepped forward in unison.

"Freeze, FBI!" Sam snapped.

The man's head jerked up and the flash on Sam's phone went off at the same time the man flung the knife. Dean fired on instinct, not waiting for Sam's confirmation, even as he dodged the knife, and the man screamed and flung himself backwards off the stone.

"Damn it," Dean swore, heading after him. Moving to avoid the knife had thrown off his aim, and while he was pretty sure he'd made contact he didn't think it was enough to bring the bastard d—

"Oh, _gross_."

He looked up to find Sam standing on top of the stone, grimacing. "What is it?"

"Let's just say he might not have found another _person_ to torture this morning, but he's definitely taken some steps to reduce the local cat population. Nasty."

"Cats?"

"Well, they were cats, anyway. I'm not sure what he was trying to accomplish, but…."

"I winged him," Dean said, kneeling by a splash of fresh blood. Definitely not his best work, but at least they actually had something to track. "Come on."

"Just a sec. Check this out."

"What? Sam, escaping skinwalker, we need to get moving."

"It's…just look at all this stuff for a minute, would you?"

With a shake of his head, Dean climbed onto the stone—a vague memory from a school fieldtrip way back when told him that it probably _was_ a millstone—and tried to ignore the bodies of several freshly-mutilated cats as he knelt to study what Sam was looking at. "Herbs…crystals…some kind of diagram." In yellow paint, like the symbols on the rock had been, so at least they probably had the right guy. Even if he was currently getting _away_. "So, what? He's a witchy skinwalker? We still need to chase him down." Dean pointed helpfully. "He went that way."

Sam frowned down at his camera. "I guess so. I mean, that was the skinwalker, so yeah, we need to go after him, it's just…I've never heard of a skinwalker—or anyone, for that matter—that both dabbled in witchcraft and was mixed up with angels at the same time. That's pretty much opposite ends of the spectrum, you know?"

"Well, don't ask me what's going on in that lunatic's head; I haven't got a clue. I just want to track him down and shoot him." Dean shook his head as Sam took a picture of one set of symbols, picking up the nearest crystal and weighing it in his hand as he hoped the skinwalker wasn't getting too far away while Sam played investigator. And then he turned the crystal over, frowning. "Dude, this is plastic."

Sam looked up. "What?"

"Plastic. And from Wal-Mart." He flipped it around to show Sam the still-attached price tag. "If he's a witch, he's the crappiest witch I've ever heard of."

"The herbs are peppermint and lemongrass, too. Not exactly high on the power—Dean!"

Dean grunted as a heavy blow from behind threw him forward, tumbling both him and his attacker off the stone. He flipped his attacker—the skinwalker, which probably shouldn't have come as a surprise—automatically, but the man didn't let go, and from the lack of gunshots, Dean figured that Sam couldn't get a clear line of fire. The man had a tight grip on the collar of his jacket, and Dean took a chance, rolling his shoulders and dropping his gun, letting his arms slide through the sleeves and then spinning to face his attacker. Who promptly fled. Dean stared for a minute. "What the _hell_?" He paused. "Hey, he stole my jacket!"


	20. Cas: A fiddling contest of all things

_Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed. Slightly shorter chapter than usual, but I'll try to have the next one up by the end of the week._

* * * * *

Castiel turned his attention inwards as Sam and Dean left, checking the state of his shell. The majority of the cuts, scrapes, and minor muscle injuries that Zachariah had inflicted—things that were more inconvenience than anything else—had healed while he had rested. The few that hadn't he nudged towards healing cautiously, and he was relieved when he felt no immediate weakening at the action. He was definitely stronger today. Not a lot, but nowhere near as drained as he'd expected given the effort he'd had to put forth to summon his sword for the Winchesters. It seemed that despite his rather foolish attempt to link with Gabriel yesterday, his power channels had finally healed to the point that he was able to start rebuilding his energy reserves at a reasonable pace.

He wasn't going to push himself—given that he _hadn't_ been able to establish a communications link, he most certainly wasn't in any shape to try to control his new shields alone or anything of that nature—but it would be a great relief to be capable of at least shifting without assistance again.

He tried a few more simple activities, summoning the rabbit from the bathroom, relatively easy since it already bore an angel's stamp, and refilling his water glass, which was a bit harder because of its liquid nature, before decided that he'd stressed his abilities in the physical world enough for the time being. The television, which had sprung to life at Sam and Dean's exit, was displaying more absurd images of the foolish small person on the three hour tour, and after a moment of thought, he sent his consciousness winging after Sam and Dean. He couldn't track _them_, of course, but there was only one road for them to follow, so it was simple enough to trace it until he encountered their vehicle. Unfortunately, they seemed to be passing their time on the trip back to Cold Oak arguing about music. As he had no interest in music in general, and certainly none in absolute nonsense about Lucifer spending time in Georgia—engaged in a fiddling contest of all things—he returned to his shell on fairly short order.

With nothing else to do, he found himself staring up at the ceiling, but he'd spent enough time in contemplation in the past few days that it was becoming almost wearing. It was odd, when he thought about it. For the majority of two thousand years he'd spent most of his time simply observing and reporting and had thought nothing of it. But now, in recent years…well, it seemed that the fight through Hell to reach Dean, the failed fight to stop the seals from breaking, his time with the Winchesters, and his continuing search for God had made him much more accustomed to _action_ than he'd realized. At least until now, when he was unable to be active.

He let his consciousness roam again, but there was nothing of any real interest happening locally, and while he found the Impala again, this time parked on the outskirts of Cold Oak, Sam and Dean weren't anywhere in the immediate vicinity. Perhaps he should have stayed with them, just in case—if nothing else, it would have occupied his time—but it was too late now. He had no interest in casting about randomly in a place where Zachariah had once captured him, perhaps alerting another watchful sibling as to his presence. He returned to his shell unsatisfied.

But perhaps…perhaps he didn't need to sit alone. Gabriel hadn't been displeased at his visit yesterday. Had given him permission to call again—had _told_ him to call, in fact. Without any conditions placed upon the circumstances of that call. He shook his head slightly. It was a human gesture he'd picked up, probably from the Winchesters, but it expressed his continuing confusion well enough.

It wasn't that he disagreed with Sam's analysis of Gabriel's behavior; he didn't. It seemed fairly sound, but he still had questions. What had Gabriel been doing for all these years? Just tricking people? Was he really so indifferent to their family's struggles?

Castiel hadn't had much to do with Gabriel—or any of the archangels—in Heaven, just a few brief encounters none of which had been particularly memorable. From what he did remember, though, Gabriel had always been the most gregarious of the lot. Before the war, all of the archangels had always spent more time with each other than with their lesser brethren, but they had ventured out now and again. After the war, though…well, after the war, Lucifer had been in Hell, and the others had become even more reclusive than before. With the exception of Gabriel. Michael, Raphael…there were a few high-ranking members of the garrison who still received orders directly from them, but very few outside of that circle ever even saw them. On the other hand, Castiel knew for a fact that Anna and a few others had continued to speak to Gabriel regularly, at least up until he disappeared, and Anna had confided in him that not all of those meetings had revolved entirely around current orders.

Unfortunately, Anna wasn't available to offer any new insight into Gabriel's character, he certainly couldn't approach the others, and while Castiel suspected that Gabriel must have found _someone_ to associate with during his exile on Earth, he had no idea who that might be. So, if he wanted to know anything more about Gabriel, he would have to do as Sam had suggested and simply ask him. And hope that Gabriel was in a receptive mood.

He centered himself, reaching for one of the tendrils of power, and called. And nothing happened.

He started to call again and then stopped himself. The lack of response was disappointing, certainly—in truth, more so than he'd expected—but he shouldn't have expected Gabriel to respond immediately. He shouldn't necessarily expect him to respond at all, in fact. Gabriel no doubt had other things to deal with than just sitting about waiting for a random sibling's call, especially since they hadn't been particularly close before, and Castiel was perfectly safe where he was.

The rabbit he'd summoned from the bathroom nibbled lightly on his sleeve, and he frowned and turned his attention to it. The latticework of Gabriel's power was a clear stamp, almost a puzzle, and he tapped it idly, wondering if he might be able to reverse Gabriel's transformation after all. If nothing else, it would occupy his mind.

* * * * *

The strands of power slipped out of his grasp once again, and if he'd been human, Castiel would have groaned. This transformation was _far_ more complex than necessary, and he had no idea what its purpose was. Neither Sam nor Dean would ever be able to reverse what Gabriel had done…he very much doubted that any human, even the most powerful witch, could.

He stared at the rabbit for a moment, frowning, and then glanced up as he felt power starting to rise around him. Gabriel had decided to visit after all, it seemed. Castiel couldn't help being pleased. And perhaps, if Gabriel was willing to entertain more questions beyond Castiel's interest in his…experiences…he might be willing to do something about the rabbit. Or at least give some insight into what he'd actually _done_ to the man.


	21. Sam: It's a bonus

_So, not quite by the end of last week…I have to stop saying things like 'if nothing else comes up.' Because it always does, even if it's just another story that won't get out of my head. Oh well. Enjoy, and thanks to everyone who read and reviewed._

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It was Sam's turn to swear as Dean took off after the skinwalker. And his stolen jacket. This whole setup was just wrong. Well, dead cats were wrong in general, but between the less-than-powerful herbs, the meaningless symbols, the _plastic_ crystals…. He wanted to spend a little more time examining the altar, but splitting up around a skinwalker was just asking for trouble, so he pocketed a small book that had the look of a grimoire—at least as much as anything here did—leapt down off the altar, and headed after Dean.

Dean was swearing as he ran, which made him easy enough to follow, and presumably he was following either the skinwalker or some sort of trail so Sam didn't bother to spend much time looking around until he broke back out into the sunlight after his brother. At which point, he nearly ran into Dean, who'd stopped just outside the door. "What? Where did he go?" Had Dean lost him?

"I don't—there!"

The man's own faded brown jacket blended into the brush better than Sam would have believed, but the darker, shinier patch that was Dean's jacket stood out. Dean took a shot, but the distance was too great for it to be accurate, and when the man took off running again, the two of them went after him. Directly into the deepest brush on the far side of town.

"We need to get him somewhere where we can cut him off!" Dean called as they went deeper into the scrub—considerably farther than they'd gone on their last trip—and still made no headway in catching up to him. "Or at least pin him down against something!"

"Oh, great, if you've got any suggestions for _where_, I'm all ears!" Sam jumped over a log, narrowly avoiding turning an ankle in a hole on the other side, and swore again. They were out in the middle of freaking _nowhere_…where Dean thought they might be able to carry out either of those plans he had no idea. He was fairly sure that he and Dean would be faster in an outright footrace, but as the ground became rockier, they were having to slow and check their footing more often, and unfortunately, the skinwalker didn't seem to be have the same limitation.

"I—hey, where'd he go?" Dean asked suddenly, slowing his pace as they approached a rocky hillside.

"What do you mea—" Sam frowned, coming to a halt. "He was right there." He'd expected the man to pull far enough ahead to lose them _eventually_, but…. "Maybe there's a ravine that he's hiding in? None of the tree trunks were wide enough to hide anyone, at least…a couple of the boulders were, but the man had to realize that they weren't going to just give up."

"Maybe." Dean turned slowly. "I don't like this."

"Join the crowd." Sam checked his gun as well, shifting so he was at Dean's back as they began to make their way up the rocky slope. The skinwalker had to have gone somewhere. Unless, of course, an angel had decided to give him a—

"Oh, _shit_."

Sam twisted to see what he was looking at. "What?"

"Cave." Dean waved at a dark hole in between two boulders that seemed to lead directly into the hillside and sighed. "I hate caves. Things _eat you_ in caves."

And they didn't even have flashlights with them, either, Sam realized; after all, they'd expected to be _above_ ground today. "Guess we could get a GPS reading and come back tomorrow." Assuming one of their phones worked out here, anyway…maybe they could get reception up on top of the hill.

"Oh, after we hike back to the motel? My keys are in that jacket, and we are not hotwiring my car."

"What? Ah, shit." It was Sam's turn to sigh as he considered the rough hole leading into the rock. "Guess we should be glad he ran this way, then…he could have just _stolen_ the car."

"Hey, don't say that!" Dean objected. "Don't you _ever_ say that! Steal my car…." He shook his head.

"Well, we're going to have to either get that jacket back or hotwire it, because otherwise I'd put money on him taking it tonight."

Dean sighed and reached up to break a couple green branches out of the nearest tree. "So. Torches, then. Give me your shirt."

"What? No." Sam glared. "Use your own shirt."

* * *

"Dude, this is weird."

"You're noticing this _now_?"

"Oh, come on, Samantha, don't be like that."

Dean shoved him lightly, and if they hadn't been in the middle of a hunt, Sam would have been tempted to drop his torch on Dean's foot. His torch made with _his_ shirt, since according to Dean, he'd already lost enough clothes today and it was Sam's turn to donate. Sam had tried to point out that it was Dean's own fault that he'd lost his jacket, but....

"Aren't we like halfway through the hill by now?" Dean asked.

"I'd say at least, but the path has been sloping down, so it's hard to say." No matter how far they'd gone, the skinwalker could have gone a lot farther; between the time they'd had to spend making the torches and their slow pace down the tunnel, the skinwalker could have gained a lot of ground on them by now. And although it was hard to say for sure, Sam didn't think he'd seen any blood spatters in the tunnel, which meant that whatever wound Dean had dealt the skinwalker might not be an issue for him anymore. Something flickered ahead, and Sam jerked his head. "Check it out; I think it opens up down there."

"Finally."

Dean had been playing rearguard with the angel-killing sword—the skinwalker was probably down here somewhere, but just in case Zachariah was in the mood to drop in and give the bastard a hand, neither Sam nor Dean had wanted to get hit from behind. Privately, Sam suspected that Dean almost _wanted_ Zachariah to drop in, just so Dean could have a chance at him, but….

"Hey, do you smell that?" Dean asked.

Sam frowned. Mostly he smelled the smoke from his torch—smoke that wasn't making it's way back up the tunnel anywhere near fast enough for his liking—but…. "Ew. Yeah, actually." He hated skinwalkers.

"I hate skinwalkers," Dean echoed his thought.

They approached the opening slowly, and Sam turned to look back at his brother. "Ready?"

Dean swapped the angel-killing sword for his gun. "On three?"

"Three." They moved through the opening in unison, Sam covering the right side of a reasonably large cavern while Dean covered the left.

Something bright white flashed on the wall, and Sam fired instinctively, but he didn't hit anything but stone. He crossed the cavern quickly, but there was no lantern, no mirror, nothing that looked like it would have produced that flash. "What was that?"

"I don't know, but that's old skinwalker parts." Dean waved at a pile of slimy…something…off in a corner and then returned to scanning the cavern.

"Gross."

"Yeah. No skinwalker, though; there must be another way out."

"Maybe." It was hard to say for sure; the cavern walls weren't smooth by any stretch of the imagination, and their torches were casting odd shadows that didn't help matters at all. Sam stepped forward to look more closely at the wall where the flash had been—maybe there was a quartz deposit or something like that that had somehow caught the light?—when he stumbled over something soft. And, fortunately for his peace of mind, non-squishy. He reached down cautiously and encountered a familiar object. "Hey, here's your jacket."

"Dude, he _dropped_ it?" Dean crossed the cavern and snatched it back, brushing the dust off hurriedly before slipping it back on. "No respect, I swear."

"I'm sure that was his first con…." Sam frowned, trailing off as he reached out to touch the paint on the cavern wall.

"His first what?" Dean asked.

"Never mind, check out these symbols." He put the torch closer to the wall, trying to make out the full shapes.

"More peace signs?" Dean asked.

Dean seemed to be concentrating on the rest of the cavern, which Sam decided was a good thing since he didn't really want the skinwalker to hit him from behind, but if he was right…. "No. Lean your torch this way a little."

"Sam, I don't think—"

"Dean, I think these are Enochian. Like, for-real Enochian." He touched the paint lightly again and then took a step back from the wall.

Judging by Dean's expression, he wanted very much to draw the angel-killing sword, but he was equally obviously unwilling to put down his gun, and they couldn't afford to lose the torches. "Well, what do they say?" Dean asked.

"I don't know." Sam pulled out his phone. "Watch your eyes." Even looking away, the flash was nearly blinding, and Sam blinked and squinted down at the screen. "I don't know what it says, Dean, but I'd _swear_ this was real Enochian."

"Then you think that white flash was an angel?"

"I guess it could have been, although I don't know why he wouldn't have stuck around. We haven't exactly had a lot of luck against them yet."

"Maybe he sensed the angel-killing sword."

"Yeah, maybe." Sam shook his head. "Okay, so we've got a guy does some half-assed cat-killing ritual—one that's obviously not going to work—to get somebody named Morris to visit, but then he decides to come down here, throw up some Enochian, and have an angel come visit instead? That doesn't even make sense."

"Sam, none of this makes sense. Let's just find the skinwalker, kill the skinwalker, and get on with our lives. If we can gank Zachariah on the way; it's a bonus."

"Well, I guess that's a plan." Sam turned to start scanning the rest of the walls with the torch, gun ready, hoping that they'd just find the skinwalker crouched behind something rather than having to chase him down another tunnel, when another thought occurred to him. "Hey, Dean, you do have your keys, right? I mean, if the skinwalker does have another way out, he can't double back and take the Impala?"

Dean patted his pocket. "Yeah, I already checked. The keys are right here."

"Good. I'll start working this way if—Dean? What's wrong?"

Even in the torchlight, it was easy to see the sudden flash of alarm in Dean's eyes. "Sam, there was a key to the motel room in my pocket too."

"What—oh, _crap_. If that was an angel…."

"Then they know where Cas is."


	22. Dean: Running a little short on names

_Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed._

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* * *

_Dean swore in between breaths as the phone rang and rang and no one picked up. They had yet to get around to replacing Cas' cell, and apparently he'd taken Dean at his word and was keeping the old one turned off, because that number kept going straight to voicemail. And now no one at the motel was picking up either. Not the room phone that Cas _should _be answering, not the front desk…. He was almost tempted to call 911, but what was he supposed to say? 'Help, help, the angels are coming?' And it wasn't like they could _do_ anything, even if he did come up with a convincing cover story. His phone switched to the signal-lost tone, and he swore again and then stuffed it into his pocket and concentrated on running.

"The car should be just over the next ridge," Sam called, a few paces ahead of him.

"You said that two ridges ago!" He ignored the glare Sam gave him in return; they didn't have time for an extended argument right now, and they both knew it. There could be—probably _were_—angels headed for Cas right now, and they couldn't even warn him. Hell, the angels could be there by now, in which case….

He shook his head, checking the angel-killing sword in his waistband as he ran. Surely Cas could snatch the thing back from him if he needed it, right? It was _his_ sword, after all.

Sam was actually right this time about the location of the Impala, and Dean flung himself into the driver's seat and had it on and turning in the direction of the road even as Sam clambered in on the passenger side.

"He's got Gabriel, right?" Sam asked. "I mean, Gabriel helped him once when the angels were after him, maybe he'll—"

"Gabriel only helped Cas because Zachariah was torturing him," Dean interrupted flatly. "Cas is on his own if it comes to a straight-up fight; Gabriel told him so already."

"Shit."

That summed up the situation nicely, and Dean pressed the gas pedal further into the floor. The Impala jerked as one wheel hit a deep rut in the dirt road and caught for a fraction of a second, but although he winced and sent a mental apology to his baby, he didn't lift his foot. They needed to be at that motel _now_.

He didn't want to slow down when they hit the paved highway, but Sam's pointed reminder that if they got tossed in jail for reckless driving—and evading arrest, because they both knew damn well that Dean wouldn't have stopped for any flashing lights—they wouldn't be able to do damn thing for Cas, was enough to bring him within ten miles of the speed limit. Barely. It was probably fortunate that they were in nearly the middle of nowhere and the local cops all seemed to have other places to be.

Sam was talking on his phone to someone—Bobby, from the sound of it—but from the way Sam was responding, it didn't sound like Bobby had any brilliant ideas for them. Probably a couple comments about what idjits they were for leaving Cas alone like that, but nothing that would help them get there any faster.

* * *

"Dude, this is wrong."

"You think?" Dean snapped. He'd pulled the Impala into the motel parking lot with a squeal of tires—and another mental apology to his baby with a promise of new tires in the future—but the motel appeared entirely, bizarrely quiet. No crumbled walls, no flames, no shattered windows, no ear-splitting angel-shrieks….

"Do you think it's already over?" Sam asked quietly.

"No." It couldn't be, not like this.

Sam checked his shotgun—not that it would do any good, but Dean didn't comment since if he didn't have the angel-killing sword he'd be doing the same thing—and stuck his head in the lobby door as they moved cautiously towards their room. "Well, the guy at the desk is asleep, it looks like. Next to his bottle of vodka."

"Of course he is." At three in the afternoon…no wonder this place was in such crappy shape. They approached the door of their room slowly, and Dean drew the angel-killing sword and nodded to Sam. Maybe this was all for nothing, but—

Sam kicked in the door, and Dean moved in immediately, sword at the ready. To find Cas sitting upright on the bed and an unfamiliar figure collapsed in the middle of the floor, a person-shaped dent in the wall several feet behind her. A second dent was slightly to the left of the first, but there was no associated body. "Uh…Cas?" Dean asked. "Are you okay? What happened? Is that an angel?"

"We should go. I think Gagiel went for reinforcements."

Sam frowned. "Gabriel? I thought he was on…well, his own side." He nodded to the figure on the floor. "Or is that one of his creations?"

"No, I said _Gagiel_. He's a member of the garrison."

"Gabriel, Gagiel…what, Dad started running a little short on names up there?" Dean had to ask.

Cas gave him a disapproving glare. "Gagiel and Nuriel," he indicated the figure on the floor, "attacked me with energy blasts and were repulsed by the shields Gabriel built into my wards. Nuriel took the full force of the return blast and I suspect will remain unconscious for some time, but Gagiel escaped back to Heaven. Presumably to report to Zachariah, who was his superior as last I heard."

"You think Zachariah will come after you again in person?" Sam asked. "I mean, I thought after what Gabriel did to him last time he was going to steer clear of you for awhile."

"I don't expect that Zachariah will come himself, but it is…possible…that since Gagiel can confirm my location and the strength of the wards, he may notify Raphael."

"Okay, then, we're _definitely_ getting out of here," Dean said. "Like now. That dude has problems. Sam, can you…?" He still had the angel-killing sword which meant that he was the best one to be unencumbered if it came to a fight, but it didn't look like Cas was quite up to walking out on his own yet.

Sam shouldered the shotgun and pulled Cas' arm over his other shoulder, half-lifting the angel to his feet. "Let's get go—" he halted suddenly, turning towards the bathroom. "Wait, what about the manager?"

"I bel—"

The door—which Sam had left slightly ajar—slammed shut suddenly, cutting off Cas' words, and the sunlight streaming in through the windows disappeared abruptly.

"Oh, _shit_," Dean muttered.

"Hello, Castiel."

"Raphael." Cas' eyes flicked towards him and the two other angels who had appeared in the center of the room. "Zachariah, Gagiel."

Zachariah and, presumably, Gagiel, were flanking Raphael, and Dean regripped the angel-killing sword and hoped that it would work on an archangel. Because if it didn't, they were so screwed. Of course, he had to figure out some way to take all three of them at once or they were all screwed _anyway_, but….

Raphael smiled and held out his hand and a beam of light flashed towards Cas and Sam.

Cas apparently had more strength than Dean had given him credit for originally, because before Dean could do anything he flung Sam away from him and took the blast of light standing on his own. He stumbled slightly, reaching back to use the bedside table for balance, but that appeared to be due to the force behind the blast rather than the energy itself, because a moment later something reflected back and threw Raphael up against the wall behind him. Or at least it threw him in that general direction…he caught a foot on the angel still unconscious on the floor and spun around, diving into the wall head first.

"Why, Raphael, I think that's your best angle."

* * *

_Gagiel and Nuriel are supposed to be actual angels from various mythologies…the angel of fish and water and the angel of hailstorms, respectively. But I'm an engineer, not a religious scholar, so no great claims as to accuracy._


	23. Cas: This will end here

_Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed. Sorry it's been so long…had writers' block when it came to _Supernatural_, and even with an outline it's taken me awhile to get more chapters written out to the point where I'm okay posting them._

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Castiel heard an 'oh, shit,' from Sam and an 'oh, great,' from Dean—an odd juxtaposition considering that, of the two of them, Sam seemed to have the more favorable opinion of Gabriel—but realistically, there were much more important things to worry about than what the Winchesters' thought about that particular brother. Like the other three siblings who were very probably here to kill them all. Well, to kill him and Sam and force Dean to accept Michael, anyway.

He cast a quick glance at Nuriel, still in a heap on the floor. One less sibling to worry about, he supposed. Not that three wasn't plenty, especially when one of them was an archangel.

Before anyone could say anything, Gabriel interposed himself neatly between Castiel and Raphael, the move far too casual to be anything but deliberate. He had said that he wouldn't interfere if anyone tried to kill Castiel outright, but he _was_ here, so perhaps….

"Gabriel," Raphael spit, pulling his head out of the wall and turning back around. "_Now_ you choose to crawl out of your hiding place? To help a traitor?"

"Now, now, no name-calling," Gabriel said sternly. "And I'm not here to 'help' anyone except myself. You people are giving me a headache." He glanced over his shoulder. "Castiel, I think it's time you went somewhere else. I know it'll be hard to leave these luxury accommodations, but—"

"That's not going to happen, brother," Raphael interrupted with a glare. "The traitor will die—"

"Because that went so well for you last time," Dean cut in. "You know, plaster is a really good look for you."

"And you will agree to be Michael's vessel," Raphael said, shifting his glare to Dean. There was a pause, and then, "We don't care what happens to the abomination."

"Thanks ever so much," Sam muttered.

"While I agree completely, at least with the Michael's-vessel part," Gabriel said, "I don't much like your tactics." He glanced to the side. "And that one needs a muzzle."

Zachariah's shell flushed an ugly red.

"I told you once, leave little brother _be_. I won't repeat myself again."

His voice had taken on a dangerous edge with that last comment, and Castiel once again felt the power of an archangel starting to rise in the figure before him. It wasn't like Raphael's power…or perhaps it was, but he was simply so accustomed to that power flowing through Raphael that he didn't think anything of it. Gabriel enjoyed being a Trickster, so when he got angry enough to let that persona fail and his true self shine through, it was very, very noticeable.

"Castiel, did you hear me?" Gabriel asked.

The dangerous tone hadn't faded from his voice, and Castiel closed his eyes and reached for Bobby's. It was one of the few places that he thought that he had any chance of reaching in his current state and the only one that might be considered safe if his siblings came after him. He could not hope to bring the Winchesters with him, but if Gabriel was able to trace him—or at least his shields—he could probably send the Winchesters after him. He halted his shift abruptly. 'Could' was not the same as 'would,' and since Gabriel had admitted that he did agree with Raphael's intentions, if not his methods…. "I won't leave them here."

"_Castiel_."

That was a direct order, but he held his ground anyway. "I will not leave them to be forced into being vessels. Not by them _or_ you." Even if he was painfully aware that there would be nothing that he could do if Gabriel decided to join Raphael.

Gabriel heaved an exasperated sigh that seemed totally out of place given the tension in the room. "Fine. I give you my word that I will send those idiots after you. But you will go _now_."

"Hey, we aren't id—"

Gabriel whipped around, and whatever was in his expression, it was actually enough to silence Dean.

Castiel ignored the byplay, reaching for Bobby's again and starting to shift, only to slam into something hard that jerked him back into the motel room.

"I told you, that is not going to happen," Raphael said with a smirk. "This will end here." He flicked his wrist, and his sword slid into his hand. The sword of an archangel. It had been a very long time since Castiel had seen one.

"Don't do this, brother," Gabriel said, flicking a finger at the Winchesters. Unfortunately, like Castiel, they went nowhere.

Raphael's smirk widened. "After what happened to Zachariah, we thought you might interfere, so we've taken some precautions. None of you are leaving until this is settled."

Was it Enochian wards like the ones used in Heaven's prisons, Castiel wondered, or was another angel was holding them here? If it had just been him who was prevented from shifting, there would be no way to judge, but no one short of Michael or Raphael—well, them or Lucifer, but he was not a likely candidate in this situation—would have been able to contain Gabriel. And since Raphael was preparing to fight them and Michael had not taken even a temporary vessel on Earth as last he'd heard, his 'money' as Dean would term it, was on wards.

Swords appeared in Zachariah and Gagiel's hands as well, and Castiel glanced at Dean. He could summon his sword back, but that would leave Dean undefended. And Gabriel had made no move at all to summon his sword, instead keeping his eyes locked on Raphael.

Castiel considered his options. If he could turn this into a battle of power…well, there was the risk of burning the Winchesters, something he would rather not chance, but while he doubted that he had anywhere near enough power to _win_, with the shields Gabriel put in place, he might be able to force a draw. Of course, if Gabriel was then forced to go directly against Raphael, the fact that he was powering shields for Castiel could prove a serious disadvantage. No, escape was a better option than a fight at this point.

Gagiel lunged for Dean abruptly—a physical lunge which, since neither Michael nor Raphael would have grounded their own soldier, was reasonably solid confirmation that the place was warded—and as Dean dodged backwards adroitly and managed to score a glancing blow of his own, Castiel caught Sam's arm.

"You have to find the wards," he said quietly. "That's what's keeping us here."

"Wards like…?"

"Enochian. Probably drawn on the side of the building." While in theory they could have marked the entire town, that was unlikely. Especially given that these must be outgoing-only wards since Gabriel had been able to shift in.

"Can I burn them?"

"Burn them, break them, just make sure they're destroyed." Aside from being human and unarmed, Sam was the Winchester that the angels would think nothing of killing outright, therefore he was the best one to get out of the room first. Of course, that required getting him to the door which could prove...difficult.

This time Dean lunged first, and Sam slapped Castiel's shoulder lightly and then stepped sideways, moving to edge up along the wall. Whether he had overheard and intended to prevent Sam's escape or in an attempt to pin Dean between he and Gagiel, Zachariah stepped forward as well, and Castiel moved to block his path.

Raphael glanced in their direction, but most of his attention was on Gabriel—who still hadn't drawn his sword—and Castiel hoped that Gabriel could at least keep him occupied, even if he wasn't willing to kill him. Even if he could get Zachariah's sword away, and he thought that he could, only an archangel's sword would work on an archangel.

"Too bad you don't have a sword, brother," Zachariah said, his mocking tone drawing Castiel's full attention. "It's nice of you to let that monkey use yours, but it does put you at a disadvantage."

"It's been a long time since you were in an actual fight rather than ordering the rest of us into them," Castiel retorted, and had the satisfaction of seeing Zachariah's shell redden again.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Gagiel lunge towards Dean a second time, and Dean once again spun neatly aside. And Sam made it another step closer to the door.

Zachariah snarled and lunged as well, and Castiel grabbed the nearest object—a wooden desk chair—and used it to knock Zachariah backwards. The chair shattered on impact, which wasn't really a surprise, and Castiel threw the remaining piece aside and yanked the table away from the wall to put between them. "Is that the best you can do?"


	24. Sam: The absurdity of it all

_Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed._

_I got a PM letting me know that there are scene breaks missing in a lot of earlier chapters. I first noticed that was doing this with non-standard line breaks a couple months ago, and when I emailed I was told that it was a temporary issue, but at this point I'm not holding out much hope for it getting fixed. The plan is to go back and put them back in as I get the chance, but I have multiple stories where this happened, so I don't know how long it be before they're all done. In the meantime, I apologize for any confusion that this is causing._

* * *

Dean and Gagiel were at least _attempting_ to fight, Sam noted as he edged his way another step towards the door. Gagiel seemed to be hampered by his inability to teleport in and out—at least Sam assumed that that was what he was trying to do when he made short pauses with a look of concentration on his face—and Dean had to be careful to stay out of arm's reach since, judging by the physical strength they'd seen Cas display, Gagiel could probably snap him in half without breaking a sweat, but at least it looked like a fight.

Gabriel and Raphael, on the other hand, were still involved in the staredown from Hell. Or Heaven as the case may be. Sam supposed that was better than them leveling the room, the hotel, and possibly half the surrounding county with it, but it still looked odd. Especially since Raphael had his sword hanging loosely in one hand.

But by far the oddest thing in the room was the sight of Zachariah chasing Cas around a table. Round. And round. And round again. If Cas was at full strength, Sam had no doubts that he could kick Zachariah's ass easily, even if Zachariah was the only one armed at the moment—and he would _love_ to see it happen—but considering how weak Cas still looked, it made sense that he wasn't forcing the issue.

Dean lunged again, slashing downwards with Cas' sword, and Gagiel took another step backwards, allowing Sam to slip a bit closer to the door. Two, maybe three more steps, and he'd be out of here. At which point he just had to find and destroy a few Enochian symbols that may or may not be on the side of the building and—

The feel of movement had him leaping backwards instinctively, grabbing a standing lamp to fling at Gagiel. It was a pathetic throw considering that the thing was five feet tall and still plugged into the wall when he flung it, but it gave him the few seconds of breathing room that he needed.

Whether the angel was actually trying to keep him from getting out or just thought that he was an easier target than Dean—unfortunately true since he didn't have an angel-killing sword and the holy oil was on the other side of the room—Sam gave himself a mental shake. Getting out of here would be good; getting out _alive_ would be better, so he'd damn well better keep his head in the game.

Gagiel kicked the lamp aside with a snarl and raised his sword above his head, and, lacking any better tactic, Sam leaned down and snatched up Dean's duffel. It was only clothing in this one rather than any useful weaponry, unfortunately, but he swung it upwards as Gagiel stabbed downwards towards him, and he heard the blade rip into it. With a wrench, he tossed the bag backwards over his shoulder, Gagiel's sword still caught up in the fabric.

Gagiel snarled and lunged again, fists clenched. Discretion being the better part of valor in this case, Sam dove out of the way.

As Gagiel rolled back to his feet, Dean came in from the side, slashing downwards with the sword in an echo of Gagiel's attack, but the angel was faster than Sam had expected. Rather than the sword Dean held catching him squarely in the back as Dean had intended, it only opened a gash in his arm. A gash which didn't heal immediately, but he completely ignored the injury and grabbed for the sword. Dean jerked it out of range and jammed two fingers into his eyes, sending him rocking backwards.

Sam took the opportunity to kick Gagiel's legs out from under him and then used his greater reach to throw the angel back against the wall. "Dean, I need to get outside!"

Dean spun between Sam and Gagiel, blade held ready. "I can hold this jackass! Go!"

Sam ducked around Dean, but a crash from the other side of the room caught his attention before he could do more than put his hand on the doorknob. Gabriel and Raphael were still locked in their staredown, but when he looked past them and saw Cas holding a sword and Zachariah sprawled on the floor, he realized that it had been a good crash. Zachariah had apparently decided that the fastest way to get to Cas was simply to lunge across the table, which had met with absolutely predictable results, and as Sam watched, Zachariah snarled and pushed himself back to his feet, pieces of the coffee maker scattering around him. Rather than pressing the advantage, Cas once again took up a position on the opposite side of the table, and Sam shook his head and ducked out the door. Cas must know what he was doing; he had some Enochian to destroy.

The bright sun outside stood in stark contrast to the battle raging within, but Sam didn't exactly have time to contemplate the absurdity of it all as he began to make his way around the building. No symbols on this side, none on the next…he made a full lap and then swore himself. Were the symbols on the roof, maybe? Or further out, maybe in the dirt somewhere? Shit, were they even _visible_ to human eyes? He hadn't exactly had time to quiz Cas on the makeup of angelic wards, or even how many of the things there would have to be.

He scanned the roofline again. It was only a single story here, but that still put the edge of the roof a good twelve or fifteen feet high, and he had no convenient way up. It was too high for him to jump, and the crumbling plaster gave him nothing that he could use as a hand or foothold. A quick tug on the nearest gutter downspout told him that he wasn't going up that way, there were no tree stumps or anything like that lying around…there had to be another way up. Some kind of attic access from the office maybe, or—

A flutter of wings was the only warning that he had, and before his mind could do more than register the sound, he was flung into the side of the building. He managed to turn in midair to keep his head from impacting first, but the force of the blow still knocked the wind out of him and he struggled to regain his breath as he slid down the few feet to the ground.

If the angels could pop in and out out here, that _definitely_ meant that the symbols had to be on the building, he realized after a moment, but it didn't help him as he shoved himself back to his feet and found himself facing an angry woman. An angry woman who was apparently the victim of angelic possession, as the outline of wings glimmered slightly in the sunlight, and he sucked in his breath sharply even as he drew the gun tucked in his waistband. Considering that the shadows of Cas' wings were only visible when he chose to make them so or when he was particularly upset, Sam didn't think that that was a good sign.

She shrieked something, and he winced as the nearest window blew out.

"What is it with you people? Turn it down already!" He paused. "You know, your brothers are getting their asses kicked in there. Shouldn't you go help them or something?" Granted that neither Dean nor Cas need to be facing anyone else, but he needed to keep her from attacking long enough to come up with some sort of viable plan. _Any _sort of viable plan.

Her jaw tightened, but at least when she spoke again it was at an understandable volume. "My brothers stand with Heaven. They will _not_ be defeated."

More proof than angels were freaking deluded, and Sam shook his head. "Are you sure? I mean, Raphael isn't the only archangel in there, and last I saw Zachariah and Gagiel were getting clobbered by a traitor and a mud monkey so I wouldn't be too optimistic if I were you." He cast another wary glance at the still-visible wing shadow, but he had to make her—whoever she was—angry enough to draw her sword. It wasn't the best plan that he'd ever come up with, not by a long shot, but since he hadn't thought to grab Gagiel's sword on his way out and the gun that he'd drawn automatically would do absolutely nothing against her….

She disappeared suddenly, and he spun quickly and then pressed his back against the building. "What in—?" Right, popping in and out worked out here. Damn it all. "You know, I'm _really_ starting to hate angels."

He felt himself flying sideways even as the last syllable left his mouth, smashing him into the downspout and sending it crashing down into the dirt beneath him. He considered his options and then dropped his gun, shoving himself back to his feet and launching himself directly at her. This wasn't a particularly good plan either, as it happened, but it might be enough to get him on the roof. Of course, if she drew her sword _now_, it would be child's play for her to spit him in midair, and if she just knocked him backwards it wouldn't do one damn bit of good—at least not for him—but given the height differential and the fact that she hadn't gone for her sword yet—

Her hand jerked, and Sam found himself flying backwards again, but as he'd hoped, the angle in which she'd gestured had thrown him not only backward but upward as well. He twisted as hard as he could in midair, stretching upwards. It was enough—barely—as one flailing hand latched on the gutter, and he only narrowly missed cracking his skull against the wall below it. He didn't have any time to worry about his near-miss, though, as the gutter creaked alarmingly, sagging under his weight. As the nails screamed and began to pull out, he reached over the gutter, his free hand scrabbling for purchase against the rough shingles. For a moment he thought he was going to lose his grip and fall back to the ground, but with a hard kick against the side of the building, he managed to throw himself up and over the edge.

The angel hadn't followed him up—yet—but he didn't waste any time dashing for the peak of the roof. If she figured out what he was trying to do, it wouldn't exactly be difficult for her to drag him back down to the ground, and he doubted that that trick would work more than once.

He felt a moment of panic as he reached the apex and saw nothing. If the symbols weren't _here_, they had to be somewhere inside the motel itself, and there was no way in hell that he'd be able to break in and search every room with a pissed-off angel on his tail. But then he twisted around and looked behind him and saw faint markings covering almost the entire side he'd just run up.

It was Enochian, that was obvious enough even from this angle, but he couldn't make out any individual words. Or even how many words it actually was. He scanned the symbols again, swearing under his breath as he tried to figure out how he was supposed to destroy it without burning the entire roof off the motel. He did have a lighter on him, but that would take forev—

"What are you _doing_?"

He spun and found the angel standing behind him. There was no time to be subtle about it; Sam dove into a rolling tumble, grabbing the nearest shingle with writing on it, ripping it away from the roof, and throwing it as hard as he could . If angel traps worked anything like Devil's traps, that _might_ be enough, but—

The angel shrieked again, and another wild gesture sent Sam flying. He saw the edge of the roof pass underneath him and braced for impact—which was going to be with the ground and would no doubt hurt like hell—and then the world went black.


	25. Dean: A little more proactive

_Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed. _

_

* * *

_Wasn't this guy _ever_ going to get tired? Dean dove sideways, rolling out of the way of Gagiel's lunge, and promptly smacked his shoulder on the lamp that Sam had left lying on the floor. He knocked it aside, cursing as he scrambled back to his feet, taking care to stay out of range. No, of course Gagiel wasn't getting tired, because he was a freaking _angel_. And an angel still hooked into Heaven, at that…he could probably hold out longer than the damn Energizer bunny.

Dean, on the other had, was only human, and unless he could figure out a way to end this soon, he was going to exhaust himself. He could already feel his muscles straining to keep up with what he was asking of them, and he _knew _he was in good shape. He made another wide swipe at Gagiel with Cas' sword, less with the expectation of connecting and more in the hope of driving the bastard back a few steps. Which worked, temporarily, at least, but he didn't expect it to last any longer than it had the last time he'd tried it, and no new brilliant ideas for his next course of action were springing to mind. A quick glance to the side showed that Cas and Zachariah were back to chasing each other around the table—Dean wasn't actually sure who was chasing who at the moment, but Cas was the one with the sword, which had to be a good thing—but Cas wasn't that long off bed rest. Hell, Cas wasn't that long off whatever the angelic equivalent of a coma was. However well he might be hiding it, he had to be getting worn out too.

Another dodge to the side, another strike at Gagiel, and he checked the other pair in the room. Gabriel and Raphael were still gazing deeply into each others eyes…offhand, Dean could think of a solid dozen inappropriate comments to make about _that_, but it could wait since at this point he just wanted one of them to give in a blink so they could get with the stabbing and shit. As long as the one archangel who didn't seem immediately inclined to make him and Sam meatsuits was here, couldn't he be just a little bit more proactive? He didn't even have to help Dean; swatting Zachariah again would be a perfectly acceptable thing to do.

Gagiel feinted sideways, poised to shift and attack quickly from the other direction as soon as Dean moved to block, but Dean had used that trick himself too many times to be fooled and didn't take the bait. Sam had made it out, at least, which left him one less person to worry about, but what could be taking—

Something changed suddenly. He wasn't sure what—_he_ certainly didn't feel anything—but all five angels jerked their heads upwards at once and then the world went black around him. And then he was in a room he'd never seen before, standing in front of a television set that made the one that Gabriel had put in their motel room seem almost small in comparison. Castiel was beside him, his shirt and tie askew and what appeared to be a large coffee stain soaking into his trench coat, but at least he was still on his feet and with a sword in his hand. But why there was a scrawny little dog on the ground at their feet alternately sniffing their shoes and yapping at the two of them...

Before he could do more than take a single glance around, something flew over his head and impacted the wall with a heavy thump. "What it—_Sam?_"

Sam slid down the few feet to the floor, collapsing into a sitting position with a groan. "Dude, what the hell?"

"Are you all right?" Not seeing an immediate threat, Dean shoved Cas' sword into his belt and caught Sam's arm, pulling him to his feet. "What happened to you?"

"I don't know. One minute I was tearing off a roof shingle, and then I was flying, and then…_wham_." He punched a fist into his palm before rubbing the side of his head.

"Hey, enough with the complaining," Gabriel snapped. "How was I supposed to know that Sasquatch was going to be _airborne_? Between the split second I had to react and that mess little brother scratched into his ribcage—into _both_ of your ribcages—you should count yourselves lucky that I managed to grab you at all. I could just as easily have ended up with a sparrow and a can of beer." He paused. "Actually, now that I think about it, I'd prefer the bird and the beer."

Dean twisted to scowl at him. Smartass comments aside, he was pretty damn sure that Gabriel hadn't been standing behind him a minute ago.

"So, what, I'm supposed to be grateful for a cracked skull?" Sam asked before Dean could say anything, still rubbing his head. "What did you drywall with anyway, concrete?"

"Crybaby. I mean, if you can't say 'thank you' for saving you, you could at least apologize for the Sam-shaped dent in my wall." Gabriel glanced down at the still-yapping dog. "Feel free to gnaw on their ankles all you want."

"Fine, thanks," Sam muttered, letting Dean lead him over to an overstuffed chair. Which had a ridiculous pile of empty candy wrappers on it, and after a moment of thought, Dean swept them all onto the floor. Gabriel was an angel; he could snap them away if he wanted to.

A second figure slumped into the other chair a second later, and Dean glanced over with a frown. "Cas? Are you all right?" He'd seemed okay a minute ago, but now he was looking more than a little dazed.

"I will be fine. That was…wearying." He looked down at the sword he still held. "Although our arsenal seems to be growing."

"Yeah, and that one was Zachariah's, which you know has _got_ to piss him off," Dean said with a grin. Cas nodded slightly and then tucked it into his coat.

"You aren't going to pass out again or anything, right?"

"I…no."

Dean wasn't entirely convinced, but whether Cas was telling the truth or not, there wasn't much he could do, so he turned his attention back to Sam. "What happened to you? You said somebody threw you off a roof?" He leaned in a little closer. "I don't _think_ you've got a concussion, but…." Despite the impact with the wall—which had left an impressive dent—Sam seemed to be tracking okay, and both of his pupils were the same size, but Dean made a mental note to keep an eye on him anyway.

"No, no, I'll be fine." Sam gave his head one last rub and then waved Dean off. "Long story short, it turns out that the wards were actually drawn on the roof of the motel, not the side, and there was an angel guarding them. An angel who wasn't limited by them." He shook his head slightly. "I yanked a shingle and hoped it would be enough to disrupt the pattern, and then she waved her hand and pitched me off the side, and then…well, here we are." He shrugged "What happened with Zachariah and Raphael and the other one?"

Dean shrugged. "I don't know. Gabriel zapped us all out of there as soon as the trap was broken." As little as he liked the archangel, the obnoxious bastard had done them a favor there.

"And you two are both okay?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, we're fine." He glanced over. "Right, Cas?"

It seemed to take Cas a moment to process the words, and then he nodded slightly, "I will live."

Not exactly a resounding affirmative, and he exchanged glances with Sam. Sam didn't seem to have anything useful to add, though, and after a minute he took another, slower look around. No windows, no doors—aside from a doggy door along one wall, presumably for the little yappy thing—nothing that gave him any kind of view of the outside world

"So, any idea where we are?" Sam asked, echoing Dean's thoughts as he craned his head to look over the back of the chair.

"Got me. I don't—hey, where did Gabriel go?" He checked the room again quickly, but there was no semi-psychotic archangel lurking in any corner that he could find. "Cas?"

Cas raised his head slowly, blinking a few times before his eyes finally focused on Dean. "Gabriel is as capable of concealing his movements from me as he is from the other angels. I don't know where he went."

"Great. Do you know at least know where _we _are? You said you've been here before, right? The other day?" He paused. "Or did he take you somewhere else?" For all he knew, Gabriel could have a thousand hiding places.

"No, I believe I have been here. This is Gabriel's place."

"Uh, yeah, I think we both guessed that much," Sam said after a minute. "But if you've been here, you know more about it than that, right?"

That earned him—well, both of them, actually—a decidedly irritated look. "Gabriel has warded this place to conceal from the others. From _everyone_. The last time I was here he brought me here; I don't know where or what it is tied to in the physical world. And I cannot go looking now. As I said, the fight has left me very tired."

That much was obviously true, and Dean decided not to press him any further, taking one last look around the room before sinking to the floor to lean against the chair Sam was sitting in. As long as they were stuck here, and until Gabriel got back or Cas felt better they seemed to be, they might as well make the best of the situation. "Well, do either of you happen to see a remote anywhere?"

* * *

Gabriel returned before the lack-of-doors, or of any kind of escape route, really got to Dean, but he didn't seem inclined to discuss his side trip. In fact, he didn't even acknowledge Dean's eyes on him or Sam's sleeping form in the chair beside Cas at all. And Dean didn't exactly have the means to go forcing the issue, especially since Cas had also fallen asleep leaving him without backup.

For lack of anything else to do, Dean matched Gabriel's silence, watching as Gabriel focused for a few minutes on Cas, snapped a bowl of dog food into existence for the yappy little creature that had been napping under Sam's chair, and then made a third chair appear beside Cas' before sitting back to watch the football game. Which somehow acquired a new line of scantily clad cheerleaders that popped into existence at the bottom of the screen and showed no inclination to pop back out regardless of the action happening behind them.

"Dude, what's your deal?" Dean finally demanded. Five minutes of quiet from the archangel was about all that he could stand.

Gabriel barely glanced in his direction. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Yeah, _right_. First you torture us for the hell of it—several times, the last time with Cas included—and then you decide to save Cas' ass out of the blue, and now…." He shook his head. "Do you wake up in the morning and pick a side based on your Magic 8 ball or what? And why are you keeping us here?"


	26. Cas: Like pulling off a bandaid

_Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed. I got a request to update chapter titles with the name of the character that chapter's POV is from so I went ahead and did that (although the discerning reader has probably noticed that it goes Dean-Cas-Sam-Dean, etc, by this point)._

* * *

"—amn it, answer me!"

Dean was being loud. Which wasn't really an unusual occurrence, but the fight against Zachariah had drained what little reserves Castiel had managed to rebuild, and he found himself wanting nothing more than to fall back into darkness for a little while. Especially since he wasn't likely to find a safer location to do so than Gabriel's stronghold. But he was finding it very difficult to let his consciousness slip away while Dean was being loud.

He vaguely registered both Michael and Lucifer being mentioned, and then the sound of his name drew Castiel even closer to consciousness. And if he'd had the strength, Castiel would have winced when he heard the words that Dean was directing at Gabriel. Not that Castiel could blame him—he had a difficult time understanding Gabriel's motivations as well and also wondered why Gabriel assisted them at the motel given his statement that he would do no such thing—but he didn't think that deliberately provoking Gabriel to anger was particularly conducive to having his questions answered. To being transformed into a small mammal, yes, but….

Another rude accusation, and Castiel wished that Sam would awaken. Sam would know how to stop Dean. But if that hadn't already happened, it wasn't likely to happen, so he concentrated on his own shell instead, trying to find the energy to speak in the hopes that _he_ could perhaps stop Dean before he went too far.

"You will be _silent_."

Gabriel's words cut across Dean's before Castiel gathered the strength to say anything, silencing him instantly, and Castiel felt himself flinch inside his shell at the tone despite the fact that the words weren't even directed at him. That wasn't any Trickster speaking, it was the Archangel Gabriel, and he was not pleased. Castiel only hoped that Gabriel hadn't done something to force Dean to go mute. Like removing his mouth. Or his lungs.

"I told you before; I'm not picking either side for this idiocy." Gabriel continued in the same deadly tone. "But how I choose to act is _none_ of your concern,"

"Yeah, actually, it is."

Well, at least Dean was still in a form that could speak. Although Castiel wished that he'd refrain from antagonizing Gabriel further.

"Look, I don't give a damn if you get off tormenting frat boys and siccing comic book characters on jackass wife beaters," Dean continued. "Hell, if it wasn't for your habit of killing people, I'd say more power to you and we could both just get on with our lives. Preferably without ever seeing each other again. But not only do you kill people, you put my brother through hell, you jerk Cas around like he—"

"I have never—" Gabriel interrupted.

"Yeah, _right_." Dean didn't have any trouble returning the favor. "I don't know where exactly you dropped him while Sam and I were stuck in TV Land, but wherever it was, he came back cut up and pissed off. And that's just for starters."

For his part, Castiel preferred not to remember that desolate mountain and the force that had slammed him—and his easily-damaged shell—back down to the earth every time he'd tried to take flight. The incident in which his face had impacted a fallen log had been particularly unpleasant. He'd eventually managed to fight his way down the mountain and free of the wards, at which point he'd easily shifted back to the United States and into Gabriel's dream reality—he'd figured out the trick of that the first time, when he'd originally gone searching for the boys at Bobby's request—but the first part of the journey had been anything but an easy process. And when he'd ended up back there a second time, this time with even heavier warding surrounding him, he hadn't been at all sure that he would have the strength to escape a second time. Fortunately the Winchesters had managed to trick Gabriel and force him to return Castiel to the warehouse so he hadn't had to, but….

"It wasn't supposed to go that far," Gabriel muttered after a moment, now sounding more defensive than angry. "I figured that he'd take a couple swings at the wards. The ability to just relax and go with the flow does _not_ run in our family. But little brother's too damn stubborn for his own good; he just kept pounding on them. And they pounded him right back. I mean, I didn't even leave him out in the snow!" His tone had turned indignant. "I put him in a nice, sturdy little cabin that the monks always keep well-stocked, and the wards were more than obvious enough that anyone with sense would have just stayed put. How was I supposed to know he was going to be so pigheaded about it?"

Castiel debated pointing out that he did not, in fact, have the head of a pig, but since Dean didn't seem to find anything strange about the statement, he decided that it was yet another bizarre human phrase. And saying nothing required him to exert no effort, so he decided that that was the better option.

"He's our friend," Dean answered instead. "He'd never have just abandoned Sam and I to your little mental amusement park, or whatever it was. Although, since just about every other angel we've met has been a dick with wings—present company included—maybe it shouldn't come as a surprise that you wouldn't know that." He paused. "How sick do you have to be to come up with something like TV Land, anyway?"

"Well, it's not like you and your brother ever seem to figure anything out for yourself without being whacked upside the head with a clue-by-four first. Six _months_ for Sammy-boy to get it through his thick skull that he couldn't save you—and I still don't think that one stuck—several days, a gunshot wound, and getting whacked in the family jewels before it occurred to either of you that people on a TV show you _play roles_…." He snorted. "And obviously that hasn't stuck either, since the two of you seem bound and determined to drag out the start of this damn apocalypse as long as you possibly can. What's the human expression—like pulling off a band-aid? Newsflash, Mr. Pain-in-my-ass, it's better to just get it over with."

"You know, you're not really helping your case," Dean shot back. "We're not doing the vessel thing. We're not starting the apocalypse. Deal with it." There was a clatter as he, either kicked something or knocked it over. "My point before was that one minute you're helping Cas, then you're not, then you're visiting from Mars, then you're…hell, I don't even know _what_ you're doing most of the time. You're just jerking him—and the rest of us—around."

"How long do you think you would have survived if I hadn't come?" Gabriel snapped. "Either back at that farmhouse or at the motel today? You and your brother are about as useful as a couple of sticks of bubble gum in a fight against my brothers and sisters, and Castiel's not much better at the moment. So you'd both be dead, or your brother would be dead and you'd have Michael in you, which amounts to about the same thing considering what's left of a vessel after an archangel gets through with it, and Castiel…." He went silent for a minute, and when he answered again his voice was quieter. "It wouldn't have gone well for him. I wasn't 'jerking him around' as you so eloquently put it, I just didn't have a choice. And as for you and Sam…believe me, if I thought I could have pulled him out of there and left you and your brother behind, I would have, but since he would have gone back for you, I didn't see the point."

Gabriel was correct about that much; he would have gone back for the Winchesters no matter the cost. And considering what had happened before, Castiel had a very good idea of what would have happened this time if he'd been dragged back up to Heaven. He was glad that he'd been spared the experience, whatever Gabriel's reasoning had been.

"So, what, we're supposed to be grateful? _He's_ supposed to be grateful? Is that why you did this?"

That made no sense to Castiel. Anything that he could do for Gabriel, Gabriel could far more easily do for himself, and while the Winchesters could given him something that he wanted—assuming an apocalypse could ever be called 'wanted'—it had to have been obvious during their last encounter that that was not going to happen.

There was a scoff, and Gabriel's first words echoed Castiel's thoughts. "I don't need gratitude. Yours is useless—unless, of course, it involves saying the word 'yes' to a certain pressing question, in which case by all means be grateful—and his…." He sighed quietly. "He's my little brother. He doesn't owe me anything. I'd have saved all of them if I could have."

'All of them' presumably being the other angels that had been killed thus far in the war. Castiel was suddenly glad that neither Gabriel nor Dean knew he was awake because he had no response for that. While the majority of the deaths of his siblings had had nothing to do with him, he did bear sole responsibility for a few.

"Okay, well, here's a question for you then," Dean said after a few moments. "If Sam or I ever do end up saying yes, do you really think that either side is going to let him live given that he's been fighting them at least as hard as we have? What's the point of saving him now if it's just going to come down to that later?" A snort. "Maybe you should follow your own advice and just pull that band-aid right off."


	27. Sam: What's today's date?

_Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed._

* * *

He was falling. That was the first thing that Sam registered, but before he could do more than contemplate how much he despised the sensation, his back impacted a hard floor, and then his head snapped back and hit it with a thump as well. "Ow." At this rate, he really was going to end up with a concussion.

"I hate him," Dean muttered. There was some rustling and then Dean leaned over to look down at him. "Are you okay?"

Sam stared back for a moment and then looked past him at a stained, cracked ceiling. And the lack of a giant television on the wall. Apparently they weren't at Gabriel's anymore. He probably shouldn't be surprised. "Dude?"

"Yeah?" Dean offered a hand, pulling him to his feet.

"Stop pissing off the archangel."

Dean looked like he wanted to object, but then his eyes widened suddenly and he spun. "Cas? Cas, are you here?"

No response, and Sam frowned and twisted to scan the room as well. "Castiel?" They were in a motel…not one he recognized, but that didn't mean much. It didn't take a genius to figure out what must have happened: Dean and Gabriel had gotten into a fight, Gabriel had decided that the best way to end it was to get rid of Dean—although apparently not permanently, which Sam supposed he should be grateful about—and he had transported them here. Wherever here was. But Cas not being with them…that couldn't be good. "Cas!"

"You don't think he'd hurt Cas, right?"

Dean sounded almost panicked, and Sam shook at head and twisted to frown at him. "What? No, I don't think so. Didn't we talk about this earlier?" He paused. "Wait, what did you do?"

Dean looked uncomfortable, opening the closet and then the door to the bathroom and sticking his head in. "Cas?"

"Dean, what did you do?" Sam repeated.

"I sort of suggested that Gabriel kill Cas."

"You _what? Why?_"

"Well, it's not like I thought that he'd do it! He was going on about wanting us to 'play our roles' again, and then he said that he wanted to save all the angels who'd died, and…." He shook his head. "Does he really think that forcing us to let Michael and Lucifer in is going to save any angels? I mean, they're trying to start a war! And if it does come to that, both of them going to be gunning for Cas _anyway_ after all he's done for us."

"So, what, you told him that he should just kill Cas now?" Granted that his brother could be an idiot sometimes, but that seemed unusually dense.

"Well…technically, I guess." Dean kicked a desk chair viciously. "But it's not like I thought he'd take me seriously! He was just irritating the hell out of me."

"Great." Sam pulled out his cell—which was fortunately still in his pocket and undamaged, a minor miracle considering the number of things that he'd been slammed into today—and started to punch in Cas' number, only to break off with a curse as he remembered that Cas' phone was shut off. They really needed to get that replaced. "Any idea where we are?"

"Uh…." Dean grabbed a pad of paper off the desk. "Sandy Shores Motel."

"Not in South Dakota any more then, I assume." Or possibly it was just an incredibly poorly named motel. It wasn't like they'd never stayed in one of those, before. He pulled open the nightstand beside the bed, tossed aside the obligatory Bible, and pulled out a phone book. A several year old phone book—unless Gabriel had sent them back in time, which, Sam supposed, he really shouldn't rule out offhand—but good enough for his purposes. "We are in Wyoming. Michigan."

"Wyoming, Michigan? Seriously?" Dean pulled open the curtains and then yanked them back down again. "Damn it. I don't like this."

"Join the crowd." Cas was God-knows-where, Gabriel—who occasionally made instability an art form—had, for all intents and purposes, just been dared to kill him, all their weapons and supplies were in South Dakota—

"My car!" Dean pulled open the shades on the window again and swore.

Their _car_ was in South Dakota….

Sam pulled out his phone again and dialed Bobby's number, relaxing a little when Bobby picked up immediately. Maybe—

"Why the hell is your car hanging off my porch?" Bobby demanded before he could manage even a greeting. "How the much did you idjits have to drink last night?"

"Uh…."

"Well? Where are you?"

"Michigan. Look, this is going to sound stupid, but what's today's date?"

"What's today's—what day do you think it is? And what do you mean, Michigan? You better start making some sense, boy; the last I heard you two were up in South Dakota! And now I've got a damn car on my porch! Is your brother with you? Cas? Or is this some scheme of his?"

"Yeah, Dean's here. And no, Cas didn't do it. We're, uh, not real sure where he is at the moment. Long story short, it's Gabriel's fault." He turned back to Dean. "Dude, stop pacing, the Impala is at Bobby's."

"And Cas?"

"No."

"Damn."

Sam put the phone back to his ear. "Hey, Bobby, is our stuff in the car?"

"How the hell would I know? Do you know how long it's been since I've reinforced the supports on that thing? I ain't going out there when there's a _car_ jammed up on it."

"Right." Sam shook his head. "Look, we're going to grab a car and head for your place, I guess. Pick up the Impala, try and find out what happened to Cas, and go from there."

He heard Bobby sigh. "All right, you do that."

"Can you keep an eye on Cold Oak and the surrounding area for me? In case Cas turns up there again, or our skinwalker takes another victim?"

"Will do. You two just hurry; I don't like the creaking I'm hearing from my porch."


End file.
